


Boyland By: the Ocean

by Anonymous



Category: Adventureland (2009), One Direction (Band)
Genre: 'maybe' Ever After, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Beach & Pool Sex, F/M, Infidelity, Loss of Virginity, M/M, PCH Cruising (Pacific Coast Highway), References to Shakespeare & Philosophy, Southern California, drunk blow job, the Ocean is a leitmotif
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-06-13 01:18:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15353052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: It's the summer of 1987 and recent college graduate, Harry Styles can't seem to find what he's looking for in life as he prepares to spend his last summer in Southern California. Fortunately, the journey finally begins in the form of a summer job with his cousin.There, Harry meets an assortment of quirky co-workers: the sexy and seductive Louis T at rides. The charmingly bleak, fellow graduate, Liam at games. The older, cooler and "married" handyman Kevin, and then... there's Z at the kissing booth; a mysteriously mononymous guy that Harry can't seem to get out of his head.With his new-found friends, Harry just might find exactly what (or who) he's been looking for.





	1. Week 1

**Author's Note:**

> Adventureland!AU
> 
> If you're currently reading this during the summertime or you've just started or graduated from school or just got a shitty summer job or getting over a break-up or an unrequited crush or have no friends & just overall sad and hate life in general... then this is the story for you dude.
> 
> Because if that sounds like you then you are one of these characters. They all range from high schoolers to college graduates & no two persons in this story are the same age. Just to show how young adults can be 17 or 22 or 25 and all somehow be at the same weird, stagnant stage of existence. Despite each of them being different ages and different points in life, they all still work at the same shitty amusement park. Maybe that's supposed to be life or something.
> 
> I guess this is dedicated to whoever is having a weird or shitty summer. 
> 
> Please enjoy. Or don't. Whatever you wanna do

 

* * * * *

Harry got a tattoo as a graduation present to himself, one week before the ceremony.  It was a simple 3 word concept across his right hip in white ink that only he could see.

 

 _Imagine Feeling Free -_ Properly allocated alliteration he gave himself, his fav literary concept.

 

 _  
_ It was the only thing that got him across that stage without bailing last minute or fainting. The vision of future Harry, the boy who was finally _free_ on the other side of that stage _._ Inking the thought into his flesh would be a sort of prelude into his new life. A thought he sent out into the universe with the hopes that it would in turn manifest before everyone mid-stride.

 

The version of Harry that’s officially grown up. Out of school, out of his parents house and most importantly, out of years that end in _teen._

 

Future Harry was supposed to be free to explore the whole world that was waiting for him. But that was last summer.

 

This was the last few weeks he’d be spending in America before going back home to England for good, the official end of his prelude.

 

Getting dumped by his 8th boyfriend in a single year wasn’t exactly a great start to it.

 

“Did he say why?”

 

Perrie always needs to know why before she can go ballistic. But he wasn’t sober enough to process if he ever said why.

 

He remembers him saying they should ‘split’ after Harry refused to have sex with him and Harry just assumed he wasn’t talking about leaving the party together. But he wasn’t about to tell his little cousin the details of his sex life.

 

Maybe his hair is too long and curly or his eyes are too green or his slow drawl was too annoying to listen to anymore or he’s too sappy - actual complaints Harry has had in the past, by the way. He’s been called too soft, once. To which he is indeed. Soft and sappy. A sentimental bastard, if you will.

 

He wasn’t changing himself for anyone so, all of those complaints were met with _sayonara._

 

He knows it’s not the 70s anymore but no matter how many people tell him he looks like Mick Jagger’s reincarnate soul in a younger body, you couldn’t get him to cut his hair in this decade for a million bucks. He likes how freely it grows in wild, soft ringlets, even if Perrie says he tosses it too effeminately and the way his curls are piled on top his head make him like a Gibson girl - mannerisms Harry was born with naturally that are supposedly why he can’t keep a man.

 

  
“Dude, this is the _third_ guy I’ve introduced you to!” Perrie hisses through her teeth, as if he doesn’t already know that.

 

For some reason, she really wanted to be able to say she introduced Harry to his husband in the future. Harry hated to disappoint her each time he failed.

 

“Do you want my reputation to be in eternal ruin?”

 

She gives him a hard shove, swerving the car in the process which Harry resents taking the blame for.

  
  
“You wouldn’t understand what the gays are like in L.A., P. You’re a _girl.”_

 

Even though he’s a foreigner talking to an L.A. native here, her kind of L.A. and his were two _totally_ different worlds. Hers being discos and every mall on sunset strip while his was nightclubs and bars in a part of town known as “boyland” where you wouldn’t find a girl within a 500 feet radius of.

 

“And you’ve never been to Cheshire.” He continues. “We’re romantics where I come from. Here, they’re all just drunk homosexuals. Vicious, _judgemental_ size queens and coke heads. All they care about is juice cleansing and Patrick Swayze. This is homosexual _hell_ .”  
  
  
“Well I hate to break it to ya kid but, you _are_ one of the ‘drunk homosexuals’ you speak so lowly of.”

 

He rolls his window all the way down, letting the cool beach air into his burning body to ease his pain and let his curly hair flap around wildly in the wind.

 

He felt a little off balance, even sitting. He doesn’t know if this is technically hung-over or technically still drunk. Too fucked up to drive himself home, that’s for sure.  
  
  
They were driving his aunt’s car (Perrie’s step-mother), an ‘86 Mitsubishi Hatchback while cruising down the PCH. It was a highway that stretched over 650 miles along the coast of California. And the view was _gorgeous_.

 

They didn’t have anything like this back home. Perrie was used to seeing it every day since she literally grew up along the coast but Harry was still in awe. He wasn’t much of a nature guy but there was just something about the Pacific that called him like some cosmic voice from afar. He can’t swim but, he’s always wanted to live by the ocean. He’d go down to the beach some nights alone to let the cool water rush up to kiss his toes in the sand at the shoreline and feel content just being in the calm ambience, loving how freely the waves moved and covered all of the planet without insecurity.

 

Every single time they cruised through, he’d let the window down so the mist blows over his skin and he’d close his eyes to imagine himself coasting through the galaxy as solar winds blew through his long hair. Especially when he’s high, which Perrie usually encourages him to partake in to free his mind. The perks of LSD - you fly through an alternate dimension. Pairing that with PCH cruising just takes it to the ultimate level.

 

This particular time of the day was like a limbo period specially reserved for either the rebel kids on a wild ride or the lonely kids on a saddened journey, not that these were mutually exclusive.

  
  
Harry was too wasted to appreciate the view right away. Sitting half naked in nothing but socks and a tight pair white underwear, he slumps in the passenger's seat as he stares blankly at the 5AM horizon where the sunlight is beginning to peek over the Pacific ocean.  
  
  
They skid into the shoulder of the road again and dust kicks up into his eyes.  
  
  
“You’re a rotten driver, P.” He mumbled with his head falling back against his seat, too unbothered to clutch the ceiling handle in terror as they nearly plunge into the rocks below the guardrail.  
  
  
She didn’t have her license yet but Harry’s been meaning to teach her how to drive a stick now that she was old enough to.

 

It was either die at the hands of Perrie or die drink-driving so, they chose the lesser of two evils.  
  
  
Even if they do make it back alive, they’re still dead when her parents find out about them joyriding through the hills all night long. Not that Perrie will be in much trouble. She was everyone’s wide-eyed, blonde little angel (which was a total _sham_ ).  To Harry, she was a loud-mouthed, blue-eyed devil but, he supposes different eyes see the same things from different perspectives.

 

They don’t see this as Perrie dragging him all over the place to help her raise hell. They see her as the child and Harry as the adult, but their world wasn’t that black and white. They still like to yell at Harry about setting a terrible example for her since he’s older but most of the time, Perrie is the one leading the rodeo and has been since she was 6-years-old. Harry was 12. Even still, he was far too sensitive to be the boss of anyone.  
  
  
Perrie reaches over and not so gently back slaps his cheek repeatedly to make sure he stays awake.  
  
  
“Stop it Pez,” Harry whines like a child, batting her hands away to turn away from her bullying him.  
  
  
“I’ve been humiliated enough already and I don’t want to _think_ about it anymore.”  
  
  
"Well that’s too bad because we're not done talking about this. I’m beginning to notice a pattern. You only just started dating Will last _week_ . So that’s, what? 7 days you’re able to keep a boy interested?”  
  
  
“6 days.” Harry corrects her with a hiccup, holding up 2 fingers. “It was 6 days.”  
  
  
Perrie was fully aware that Harry’s last boyfriend, Charlie before Will, dumped him last month after exactly 8 days of making out in the backseat of his Bimmer so this was a new record.

 

Perrie was just determined to find his soulmate and he wasn’t gonna stop her from trying although, he doesn’t know if it should concern him that his high-school-aged cousin knows so many college boys.  
  
  
He wasn’t usually this much of a wreck but this time around, he wasn’t taking it well at all. He said he was fine but the fact that Perrie found him passed out, drunk in Will’s yard with an empty bottle of liquor an hour ago screams that Harry is in fact not fine and is actually at the edge of a very high cliff.  
  
  
To say it’s been a really rough day in an understatement. It’s been a rough year in general but last night takes the cake.  
  
  
It was a grad party that the whole world was invited to - the whole world being every 20-something-year-old on the West coast transitioning from college to the adult world. Harry likes to call that transitioning period Purgatory and he’s been stuck in it since last summer. He’s probably been to over 1,000 grad parties by now.  
  
  
The only reason Harry went was because it was Will’s party and he’d not only invited him but even offered to pick Harry up, which was almost 40 miles out of the way.  
  
  
Have you ever dragged someone across an entire hillside _just_ to break-up with them? It was the most thought he had ever put into any gesture in their whole 6-day long relationship.  
  
  
A simple phone call would’ve been a bit less cruel or at the very least, more economical.  
  
  
Long story short… Harry did not plan for the last few weeks of his gap year to be this shitty.

 

Before this past year happened, he was supposed to fulfill his promise to his parents of re-enrolling for grad school - which he did. Then, as a graduation present from his dad, going backpacking through central Europe for year for a life-changing experience that would shape him into a more refined human being over the year with things like youth hostels, German beer and world-class textile farms. Modern refinement by day, cute Swiss lads with sexually permissive attitudes by night. All this preparing him to come back home to finish getting his certification in some bullshit like "Entrepreneurship" all just so he can run some dumb company his family owned.

 

That version of his life-plan was made without much of Harry’s input. In fact, the entire vision of what he was supposed to be in life belonged to his family. He’s never got a clear view of who he was by his own definition or gotten control of which direction his life was facing even to this day.

 

The fact that his life was always someone else’s idea was his biggest issue. This was why he almost didn’t cross that stage.

 

While he technically came from a very prominent, well-to-do family, Harry didn’t consider having loads of money something that made a person ‘remarkable’. In fact, he’d go as far to say they were rather unremarkable as a people and Harry strived for something more than being apart of that textile-worshipping cult.

 

Many of his ancestors were farm labourers in Norfolk but he had this legendary great-grandfather that decided to be the first one to break away from the pack with his brother’s help to turn their ranch and talent for cultivation into the production and distribution of yarn, cloth and clothing. Things like satin and silk. Factories all over Europe. Plant farms on the countryside. The whole sha-bang.

 

Their textile manufacturing company has been maintaining itself for the last 8 decades in Cheshire. His father still carries on the tradition of running it today.

 

Harry never seen this great-grandfather of his but, his father always said Harry reminded him of him. Unless the man was deep-throating guys on his ranch, Harry doubts that he’s anything like such a snooze of a guy.

 

He’d say he’s more like his auntie, who gave up that whole career-path after she found a _richer_ and widowed businessman to marry who owned half of the theme parks in Southern California a decade ago, taking half of her trust with her.

 

That was how Harry met his guardian she-devil, Perrie.

 

That was also how Harry found his ticket out of his shitty hometown .

 

He was expected to take over his dad’s business after college so he sacrificed that whole European trip last year to hop on the first flight to L.A. under the pretense of taking a gap year here instead before his whole life was taken over.

 

That was a year ago and all he’s found here is 8 ex-boyfriends.

 

The truth was, Harry didn’t know what he was looking for in life or where he thought he’d be in a year. Freedom looked a whole lot different from a distance than it did in person yet… here he was.

 

_Free for one last summer._

 

And a terrible one at that.

  
  
“You threw up in his dead grandma’s urn?” Perrie shrieks after he recounts the entire night he could remember.  
  
  
“Are you out of you motherfucking mind?!”  
  
  
To be fair, he was drunk. Will knew Harry was a lightweight which is why he waited until he’d had a few before trying to get Harry naked in his bedroom. After Harry rejected the idea, he dropped the bombshell of _I don’t think we should see each other anymore._  
  
  
“My reputation is the one on the line here, H. I don’t need your complicated social life fucking up mine too!”  
  
  
With the state he’s in, Harry couldn’t be bothered to give two fucks about his reputation right now.  
  
  
Even as she threatens to rat him out to his parents and have him deported back home early, all that really matters to Perrie is that she found Harry before he got himself killed while the sun’s still down. So they have a chance to survive the night without getting caught.  
  
  
It was a one hour drive back to her dad’s beach house from the hills. They were half-way home now.  
  
  
“Drink some more fluids. Your head won’t hurt as much in a few hours.”  
  
  
He picks up his bottle of cherry flavoured Gatorade and drinks up, appreciating how much she actually does care about his well-being.  
  
  
His head wasn’t really hurting at all too much anymore. To be totally honest, he never drank or did mind-altering substances before he moved here. Only because he never understood the appeal to losing control of his thoughts and body. Now, it’s a rapture to be disembodied from himself. He’d just stepped outside of his body and was now watching the whole thing from the ceiling of the car. Watching Perrie grill him. Watching himself listening to the waves of the ocean speaking to him in a language no one else can.

 

“You didn’t tell him about your scarlett _V_ did you?”

 

Harry stiffens up when Perrie brings that topic into question, pulling him back into his body to bring the bottle down slowly.

 

“That has… nothing to do with it.”

 

“Oh my _God_ Harry _.”_

 

“What!?”

 

 _“You_ _did.”_ She groans as her neon-powdered up eyes rolled.

 

It’s then Harry realises he’s never seen Perrie without make-up on. Not since junior high school anyways. He wonder whatever happened to that nicer, less judgemental creature.

 

“You _promised_ me you wouldn’t.”

 

“You know I don’t lie.”

 

“Okay, that’s well and good and all but you couldn’t just like… leave it out of the narrative just this _once?_ You know this is why this keeps happening, right? You don’t want _VIRGIN_ to be your signifier!”

 

_‘Jesus. She takes 1 AP semiotics class and she comes back out as Ferdinand the fucking Swiss linguist.’_

 

Perrie lost her virginity _years_ ago. It seems like everyone but Harry did.

 

He has no idea when everyone decided to go have sex but he doesn’t care about missing the ride on the fuck-train as he downs his fluids in silence while Perrie continues their routine, post-break-up lecture.

 

“You need to just hop into bed with the next cute little twink who throws himself at you and get it over with already. You’re not exactly _ugly_ you know...”

 

That was her polite way of saying it wouldn’t be hard for him to find someone willing to sleep with him, but sex was the literal _last_ thing he wanted someone to be looking for in him.

 

Harry was not a body and he frequently spent his days wandering around outside of it. And he did not see other human beings as bodies walking around for him to try to catch. Like most of Earth’s material matters, he considered that an unimportant background detail that could be easily disregarded.

 

He didn’t really care what someone’s dick said about them. He’d rather hear about what was in their soul.

 

 _“Look,”_ Harry starts to defend himself passively. “I know most people just want to lose their virginity as soon as they possibly can or date the hottest studs in town but, I’m not one of those people. I can’t make love to someone that I don’t have those kind of feelings for. And I can’t be with someone for their body. Sorry my standards are too high for you.”

 

She rolls her eyes at his little confession. She hates it when Harry calls it ‘making love’ and Harry hates the word _fuck_ in the same context. That’s what Will called it. He doesn’t think something that special should be diminished down to such ugly phrasing.

 

Not that they had to be married or anything but, 6 days isn’t long enough for him to know if he really loves someone and if that’s gonna be his signifier or the breaking point in all his relationships then he supposes he’ll just have to die alone.

 

This thought makes him start to tear up, feeling doomed that he might float through life alone, forever. God knows he’s spent enough of this life floating through the world from place to place without knowing where he was going. Few too many years floating in the clouds in the idea of someone else’s mind.

 

He just wished he could find somewhere to settle. Maybe looking for that in a person or place wasn’t right.

 

“You’re alright, Harry.” Perrie nudges his shoulder after glancing over and seeing his watery eyes, as if she can hear what he’s thinking.

 

“Summer’s only just started last night. One night out of a _million_ better ones.”

 

She toned down the pep-talk as much as someone like Perrie could ever tone down. As someone who wore big, padded power shoulders with every outfit, big hoop earrings every day of the week and loud eyeshadows and lipsticks every hour of the day and even louder big hair that fell in wet ringlets around her shoulders, her ability to go from his terrifying tormentor to his loving caretaker was sometimes freaky.

 

She always makes him forget who’s the adult in every situation.

 

“I know things suck right now, okay? But they won’t be like this forever. We won’t just find you a new boyfriend. We’re gonna find you The One.” She smiles at him as she says the next part.

 

_“Your soulmate.”_

 

The proclamation hangs in the air like it was a banner announcing the new theme of the summer. Corny as he may be, Harry loved that concept.

 

It went without saying that he was kind of a dreamer.

 

He got a degree in ‘Comparative Literature and Renaissance studies’ and he read poetry for pleasure sometimes. Harry was about as hopelessly lost in the clouds as hopelessness gets, drowning himself in romanticised idealisations every hour of every day. He was almost _obsessed_ with the idea of his soulmate out there somewhere, waiting to cross paths with him.

 

“He’s _definitely_ somewhere in Southern California.” Perrie says with certainty. “We just gotta look out for them.”

 

Her use of the word _them_ makes him narrow his eyes suspiciously.

 

“If you’re referring to _the Ocean…”_

 

 _“Of course I’m referring to the Ocean!”_ Perrie laughs. “You know he lives here, right?”

 

No shit Harry knew the Ocean lived here. That’s all anyone here ever talks about.

 

First thing anyone in L.A asks you when you meet someone new, whether it’s at a house party, first date or at the fucking grocery store - _Have you ever listened to the Ocean?_

 

It seems like that kind of question would be a pretty randomly existential thing to bring up in as a conversation starter but they weren’t exactly talking about the Pacific.

 

The Ocean was the pseudonym for a new artist on the rise here that’s music has been all the rage in Cali while everyone else in the world was jamming to synthesizers, rock’n’roll, and Billy Idol.

 

Their sound was heavily influenced by late 60s/early 70s psychedelic culture, which was centred around perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs.

 

The Ocean’s music almost had the same effect with chipmunked vocals that were always either sped up or pitched down that added a hint of mystery to it since it concealed their real voice and is also intended to replicate the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs by invoking three core effects of LSD: depersonalization, liberation, and astral projection; all of which detach the user from reality.

 

It seemed intentional. The Ocean didn’t have a gender in real life so, why should it’s music? Although, Harry had a deep feeling that if the ocean were really personified, it would be a _he_.

 

The Ocean’s music transcended genre. Like ethereal music that was made by angels, carried down to Earth in the wind for humans to enjoy from the distance of whatever higher plane they were singing from. It had become a sonic dreamscape to Harry he enjoyed letting flow through his body.

 

He listened to his music for hours and hours now, almost in a trance. Whether he was sad, happy, lonely or heartbroken. He could dance to the same song he cried to a week ago.

 

People have been saying it’s gonna be the new wave in the new millennium to get the "shouting into the toilet" effect as if they’re singing from a distance or into a fan that their voice starts to break up and kind of judder. Like their throat has been auto-tuned somehow.

 

He was both stuck in the past and ahead of his time. And Harry loved it just as much as he loved the actual ocean. With all the rumours Harry has heard, he without a doubt lived in L.A., just like how all the greats did.

 

The thing was, no one has ever seen the Ocean’s face or heard his actual voice. Even still, his sound was something that spoke to Harry on an almost cosmic level, just like the waves in the Pacific itself. He was sure the dude’s voice belonged to someone his soul has been searching to getaway with his for a long time now.

 

It was just another escape from his current life. A higher truth that touched Harry and brought him here for a certain purpose, not to just float around aimlessly like morning fog that’s going nowhere. Whether that was bringing him to a person or some other important epiphany he needed. Harry would spend all summer trying to reach it.

 

“Fuck Europe.” Perrie scoffs. “This summer is going to be a transformative experience for you, young Harold. You’ll see.”

 

He certainly _did_ see something.

 

Down by the shore, something in the distance caught Harry’s eye and didn’t let go even long after they’d sped by.

 

There were only two people down there on the beach, getting dirty as they were tangling in the sand.

 

The way the waves hit the rocks behind them looked similar to how their bodies moved together, pushing and pulling back and forth like the ocean tide against the sand. One guy on the ground with his head thrown back like he was about to be beamed up into outer space while his lover was on top, back-arched and riding him, _enraptured_ as their head pointed to the stars with their long dark hair blowing in the wind.

 

As they past by, Harry realised it was two guys.

 

The younger one on top’s mouth was hung open in a sort of dreamy awe as if on the other side of his closed eyelids, he was watching a film of something that showed the birth of the universe.

 

They fell into each other one last time and their bodies may as well have released angels from the way they bucked in ecstacy. Harry swallows when he feels that he’s gotten a little hard, covering himself with Perrie’s oversized, denim jacket.

 

In a weird way… the way they were so into each other was kind of mesmerising. Not in a porno kind of way. In a way that makes Harry really wonder what it feels like to completely abandon yourself in someone else’s body like that with your own. Fall into them like diving into water and finding so much pleasure within them that you physically burst.

 

He didn’t understand everything about his body completely yet but, it had it’s fascinating moments in it’s unknown secrets.

 

He’s not exactly anti-sex with the way he spends the days when he’s alone desperately craving affection. He’s had those 2AM nights of waking up in a cold sweat after a steamy dream that featured the idols plastered on the walls of his bedroom when he’d fantasise about what they’d do if they weren’t confined to the poster on his wall.

 

He’s not looking for a husband but, he didn’t feel… _good_ alone. Something that felt cold and empty without someone else there. Being single to Harry felt like a transitory hallway people are simply passing through en route to inevitable partnership. He knows he’s not the only one that feels like this.

 

Even Plato's Symposium details about how the origins of love in humanity couldn’t have been possible to discover without two people whether that was your partner, child or friend. Hell, he could argue that even _God_ agreed that Adam needed a mate so badly that he had to rip out a piece of his internal organs just to make him a girl to chill with in the garden of Eden.

 

It’s the basic paradigm of the human experience. This blueprint of coexistence that establishes the basic laws of nature – that everybody has an equal and opposite body, a destined companion without which they are incomplete.

 

Love was a beautiful kind of philosophy to Harry and he saw it as a sacred experience he had yet to come close to.

 

He supposed romance isn’t even necessarily what he’s seeking. It was an abstract concept since his world isn’t painted so black and white either.

 

There’s like a vacuum inside him, pulling at a connection to something in the distance he only wishes he could have for himself, like missing someone he’s yet to meet or somewhere he’s yet to go. He believes this vacuum-like void exists in everyone, pulling at things like fulfillment and purpose.

 

Happiness. Success. Companionship. Love. Freedom. You name it. Something to move everyone into opening their eyes every morning and going out into the world everyday instead of wasting away.

 

He doesn’t really know what it is he’s trying to reach to feel complete. But he has a gut feeling that he’ll find it and fill the void this summer. Whether that’s a boyfriend or a higher purpose in life, he’ll take it for whatever it is.

 

That same day, his Uncle revealed that he had the same idea.

 

“I have to get a _what?”_

 

He’d said JOB.

 

It was well past noon when Harry had been snatched out of his dream about riding through the ocean in a speedboat with some faceless entity with raven-level black hair, not even realising when he’d passed out again or how the hell he’d got into his bed. Uncle John was completely done with him regardless.

 

He didn’t even give Harry the benefit of the doubt in how the bottle of Vermouth had emptied itself in his wife’s car before he was threatening to throw him out of the house if he spent another summer drinking all night and perverting his innocent daughter all day (not that he’d know that Perrie was _his_ supplier and did that all by herself just fine).

 

Aunt Darcy was the one who made the original terms of agreement in letting Harry stay in the guest beach house - he’d get to spend his gap year here, doing whatever he wanted while in return, he’d stay out of the way unless he was keeping Perrie out of trouble. Easy as pie.

 

For the most part, this was a pretty solid deal. Their house was big enough for everyone to disappear into their own isolated corners as it is if he ever decided to join his family off the beach and there was enough food to trust that Harry wouldn’t starve if they didn’t see him leave his cot for a few weeks (which is what happens when he’s single).

 

One thing about his family that Harry appreciated was that they never treated him like a child, even when he _was_ a child. More like a lesser form of a proper adult. But  recently, Uncle John’s mild tolerance of Harry’s stay here had turned into full on resentment.

 

He already didn’t like Harry’s dream-like state of existence that he seen more as a boy with no grasp of reality than a proper adult who could handle living on his own - all of which Harry would say he’s completely correct in assuming.

 

For that, his life lesson pretty much wrote itself out.

 

“Get a job or get out.” He said, issuing his drive-by ultimatum as he left for work at one of the hundreds of theme parks he ran down coastline.

 

Harry had already been trying to get a job this summer anyways because he agreed that getting out of the house for something other than kissing boys in the backseats of their fancy motor vehicles was much needed, not counting going to the mall with Perrie to expand her neon-infused wardrobe.

 

There was only one issue… with his useless degree, unless someone needed help in translating medieval English or restoring a Fresco, he’s _screwed_.

 

He spent all day applying at various jobs after his uncle’s threat, all over the entirety of the Western seaboard. But he didn’t even qualify for manual labour.

 

That was how Harry found Adventureland.

 

Or how Perrie put in an application for him behind his back.

 

He’d gotten his first call back ever a week later and he’d nearly had a coronary on the spot when Aunt Darcy answered the landline to someone asking for Harry Styles about a job.

 

He didn’t even care to ask her about which one it was or what they wanted him to do - all he had to do was ride down to the address she gave him and sign his name up for the job.

 

After embarking on a 15 minute bike ride, he knew there had to be some kind of mistake.

 

_Adventureland._

 

“This can’t be right…” He mutters under his breath as he approaches the gate of cars riding through the entrance, stopping at the booths to give the ticket man their cash and entering into the land of adventure, as advertised by the bright neon red sign above the park.

 

He didn’t remember the names of every place he’d applied to but, there was no way he’d resorted to a shitty theme park that was basically the ugly step-sister to Disneyland and armpit of American culture.

 

In the real world, every kid wants to go to DisneyLand to experience the plethora of themed attractions. The experience at AdventureLand is... _less_ amazing.

 

While the generic Adventureland is almost _always_ hyped as though it was the world's equivalent of the Disney parks, it tends to be noticeably less impressive. Wooden roller coasters. Boat or tea cup rides - pick whichever one annoys you more. Fair-type circling rides like flying saucers or space shuttles, a major attraction on par with the wooden roller coasters that turn out more squeamish than thrilling.

 

There will be no restaurants -- all food comes from little carts that are basically military tanks of grease and lard fused into misshapen pancakes. It is more on the level of Busch Gardens or the smaller regional theme parks that mushroomed in the 50s but have again somehow taken popularity as the thing to do in the contemporary 80s summers.

 

He’s pretty sure Uncle Johnny owns this place and, like Harry said, this _can’t_ be right.

 

The parking captain that was directing traffic had a dead eyed glare that suggested he hated his life and this job and it intimidated Harry out of turning back around and complicating traffic.

 

“Hey, Harry.”

 

The ticket booth guy catches him off guard when he greets him by name, as if they know each other.

 

It takes a moment for Harry to put a name to his face when he’s got dark shades on, concealing his eyes until he connects his blonde floppy mullet spiked skyward like he’d just been electrocuted a few minutes ago to Perrie’s boyfriend. All it was missing was smoke.

 

“Hi… Niall.” Harry sighs.

 

He took Perrie to homecoming 3 years ago and had been dating her off and on ever since. He had to have graduated by now and something told Harry he had no plans on going back to school anytime soon.

 

“Still working at Adventureland, huh?”

 

“Still need a haircut, huh?” Niall sneers. Harry resents that comment.

 

Just as he was about to pay for his ticket on the other side of the gate, he sees Perrie walk by, eating a corn dog in a white t-shirt that obnoxiously states her job description in bolded, black all caps.

 

**_RIDES !!_ **

**_RIDES !!_ **

**_RIDES !!_ **

**_RIDES !!_ **

 

 **_“_ ** _Pez!”_

 

She looks up at him with a wide smile.

 

“HARRY!”

 

Before he even knows what’s happening, she’s leaping over the gate and dragging Harry under with his bike coming along the way.

 

 _“Hey, he didn’t pay!”_ Niall yells at them.

 

Perrie just barks at him about a “family and friends discount” that he didn’t bother arguing with.

 

It made Harry feel a little better that he wasn’t the only one Perrie asserted her big-balled dominance over.

 

“Perrie, _wait!_ I don’t have time to play with you right now, I have a job interview here--”

 

“No ya don’t.” Perrie counters as she drags him into a dingy back office.

 

The small room was probably the size of Harry’s bathroom, completely cramped and not at all helped by all the thousands of papers littering every surface. It reminded him of walking through Perrie’s disturbed bedroom.

 

“You know I need this job.”

 

“You already _have_ a job.” She chirps with a smile as she rummages through a desk.

 

Harry feels like they’re breaking and entering in the manager's office right now as he stands in a corner, looking out of the window with paranoia.

 

“How do you figure that?”

 

Perrie finally finds what she’s looking for, getting out a blue t-shirt and application.

 

That’s when Harry gets a load of the big bolded letters on the back of her shirt.

 

**_MANAGEMENT_ **

 

“Because I just hired you.”

 

She tosses him his shirt after writing his name across a _Games_ application.

 

He knew she had a job here last summer but, he had no idea she was the _manager._

 

“How do you think I meet all those cute college boys?” She laughs as he fills out his file.

 

“This is the meeting ground where they’ve all ensconced every summer.”

 

He reads his job title across his new shirt.

 

**_games_ **

**_games_ **

**_games_ **

**_games_ **

 

His has much less enthusiasm than hers.

 

“Is there anyway I can get a _RIDES_ position?”

 

He wanted at least _some_ excitement.

 

“Harry, you and I both know you’re not in the business of riding anything you have to sit on between your legs. You’re much more of a game guy.” Perrie tells him as she fills out his app. “Plus I already took out the paperwork.”

 

He nods compliantly with rolled eyes as he crosses his arms and waits, looking around outside the large window in front of them and watching a group of preppy rich boys in polo shirts with the collars flipped upwards, salmon shorts, and boat shoes walk by. Cardigans tied over their shoulders for the finishing touch of that quintessential _‘my dad is a lawyer and will sue you dead’_ look that Harry knows so well.

 

Perrie wasn’t kidding, this was _Boyland._ He may as well just seen a group of all 8 of his ex’s walk by.

 

This would be _terrible._

 

Perrie starts to lay out rules for all the stands outside that seemed to be a form of Harry’s orientation.

 

“Now I know you’re blood and all but, there will be no freebies.” She starts.

 

Harry could point out that they’re not really blood but it seemed it would defeat the purpose of the sentiment.

 

“No free turns for your friends and/or boyfriends. No free upgrades. No free _food_.”

 

“So just, nothing here is free. Got it.” Harry nods.

 

“You got it, curly.” Perrie winks with a smile.

 

“Everyone has to pay for everything. Even if you work here. And most importantly when working in games, no one _ever_ wins a giant-ass panda, direct order of my father. We haven’t got many left and I _WILL_ fire your ass.”

 

“Is that… is that a metaphor for something?”

 

Perrie stands up in front of him now to knight him with his old t-shirt that’s probably been through a few dweebs before him.

 

“Harry Styles, by accepting this t-shirt, you are HIRED!”

 

Just like that, their ceremony is over with. And Harry had a summer job.

 

Orientation didn’t end with Perrie. She directed him to the arcade to wait for his “official” gaming master that would walk around the park to let him get a feel for all the games.

 

 _“How will I know who’s my trainer?”_ Harry called after her as she was leaving him to drown in the sea of bratty 12-year-olds and soccer moms crowding the cave of video game booths.

 

A guy with gelled back hair in dark aviators, about Harry’s age but still baby-faced in the cheeks, walks into the arcade in the same _games_ t-shirt, tight leather pants and high-top Nike air maxes as he tosses an apron at Harry to catch.

 

“I’m your trainer.” He answers Harry’s question with a blank face.

 

“Alright new guy, let’s get this over with.”

 

He had a deep voice that lacked emotion and the way you couldn’t see his eyes behind his shades made him look like some Godly figure that was above everything around him even though he wasn’t much taller than Harry.

 

The monotone way his voice came out seemed to be a way of him saying _I don’t care about anything_.

 

Harry believed he was going to hate him already.

 

“Welcome to Adventureland, the greatest theme park on the coastline. Otherwise known as our personal Purgatory of puke.”

 

While Harry appreciated the poetic alliteration, his words come out in a bored, robotic stream as if he was reading it from a script - the voice of someone who is emotionally uninvested in possibly everything going on in life around him. Like he could watch a plane crash into this place and only groan about the fact that he’d probably be the one they’d make clean up the bodies.

 

He gestures for Harry to come along so they can get this over with before introducing himself as Liam while Harry follows him outside.

 

“I’m Harry.”

 

“English?”

 

“My nationality, yes. Obviously.”

 

“No, I meant your first language.” Liam snorted to himself without smiling, putting his hands into his pockets as he walked with his slow, burdened gait.

 

The sarcasm was easily reciprocated. Harry suddenly felt like annoying him would be fun.

 

“I think my first language would be British, actually. Right after American.”

 

“Ah yes, our imperialistic predecessors as Paul Revere once warned of.” Liam nods with another show of expert level alliteration, like he might be some kind of poet.

 

“The British Invasion 3.0. How 60s.”

 

“Wow. Cute _and_ xenophobic.”

 

He’d managed to invoke actual emotion out of Liam finally as a genuine smile broke across his adorably squishable cheeks.

 

When he actually laughed, his teeth flashed, pure white and he snorted through his nose like a dork and Harry knew they _weren’t_ going to hate each other.

 

He was going to enjoy making this guy laugh all summer long even more than annoying him.

 

Liam pulled his sunglasses down to his nose, finally revealing the cheerless boy behind the mask as he looked over at Harry.

 

He had a serious lack of blood circulation in his face which only seemed to emphasise the way his darkened eyes suggested that he’s either been sleep deprived for a few too many years or bitten by a vampire.

 

Despite his bleak aesthetic, he was _insanely_ attractive. Beautifully dark eyes like black coffee and bushy unkempt brows, just the way Harry somehow knew they’d be.

 

He looked Harry up and down, very obviously reassessing him before snorting again, silently this time, and pushing his glasses up over his eyes to resume his _above it all_ distance.

 

“Thanks.” He smirked as they went.

 

It was pretty clear that Liam had just figured out that Harry was gay. Something told him he’d be hard-pressed to find someone who’d give less of a fuck about it than Liam.

 

They approached a gaming booth with a million bottles grouped together on a table in long lines. Niall makes a reappearance again, leaning against a railing with dark sunglasses of his own as he sat in top of the table. Harry was beginning to think this was a part of the uniform.

 

“Hey Ni.” Liam taps his head as they step around the table.

 

It was then Harry noticed Niall was asleep, his mouth a deep pool of clear drool.  
  
  
“Alright, English guy. Welcome to the first of many shitty games.” Liam sighs, resuming his dead inside energy as he’s gesturing over the other table of rings.

 

“One dollar buys 5 rings.” He begins to explain as he walks around with Harry close behind.

 

“If one of the rings lands on one of the red bottles, they win a _giant_ -ass panda.”

 

Harry looks at the group of 7 feet tall pandas hung up from the top of the booth like a mass suicide ring strung up in one big noose.

 

“That _is_ a giant-ass panda…” Harry murmurs.

 

“Yeah, it’s pretty much the best prize in the whole park. And that’s because this game is unwinnable.”

 

Liam picks up a ring and hold it over a red bottle.

 

“Observe as I drop a ring from 2 inches away.”

 

The ring bounces off the bottle like it’s made of rubber.

 

“So… nobody ever wins?” Harry asks, confused.

 

Liam tosses the ring back to it’s table.

 

“If someone wins a giant-ass panda on your watch, you should just go home ‘cause you’re fired, okay.” Liam walks away from the booth then.

 

“I mean, we pay little Malaysian kids 10 cent a day to make this shit, we can’t just give it away.”

 

_“Wow…”_

 

“Yeah. Wow.” He sighs in agreement as he brings Harry to the next one.

 

He shows him one where the object the game is to knock off the top-hat of the mannequins rotating around a conveyor belt except all of their top-hats are either nailed down into their heads from the inside or superglued to their scalps. Even at the basketball court, he shows Harry that standing directly below the hoop reveals that it’s been hammered into an oval shape so the ball never gets through so everyone has to stand behind the white line so they can successfully abuse the laws of perspective.

 

“Jesus. This is… so wrong.” Harry’s mind is blown.

 

“People are getting ripped off.”

 

“Yeah, yeah Trotsky. Let’s get you a booth.”

 

 _Lit major._ Harry easily guesses from Liam casually dropping the name of the Russian Marxist.

 

This made him like Liam a hell of a lot more seeing that it was possible they both had the same level of useless degrees and somehow had the habit of comparing people around them to European philosophers in common with each other.

 

Liam is already trudging away, which Harry has since gotten used to.

 

He was pretty over training as well.

 

“Are you in school?” Harry asks.

 

“Bullshit Lit major, yes.”

 

He one-ups Harry’s bullshit major of Comparative Lit & Renaissance Studies with Russian Lit & Slavic languages.

 

It turned out, they had a lot more in common than what meets the eye. They were both into the classics. Harry thought it was kind of cool that he could speak Latin. He never got that far with it.

 

“Of course you didn’t. Because what kind of job does that get me?” Liam inquires, which… okay point taken. Harry sees why he is so over his depressing life.

 

“English teacher. _Substitute_ English teacher. Or a docent.” Harry names some career tracks the last 4 years has probably awarded Liam with.

 

Liam still one-ups him with his.

 

“Hot-dog vendor. _Substitute_ hot-dog vendor.”

 

“You’re brutal, Liam.”

 

“You’ll get into it. Trust me.”

 

“Who says I’m not already?”

 

That made Liam snicker off to the side.

 

“Is this you flirting? Because I’m definitely into that by the way.”

 

“I noticed. If my uninspired pessimism is me flirting with you then we’ll be fucking by the end of summer.”

 

He could honestly see that happening, if not out of sheer boredom before anything else. It must’ve been the most casual coming out conversation he’d ever had. They keep going back and forth, giving each other horrible job titles to pass the time they’re supposed to be “training” for.

 

Harry is laughing by the time Liam gets to pegging him as a marijuana delivery guy.

 

“Cabbie in New York.”

 

“Revolutionary extremist.”

 

“Adventureland but… you’ve been shot.”

 

Harry could not stop laughing.

 

“Brutal.” He shook his head with a smiling wince into space, thinking of one for Liam that he knew he’d have to despise.

 

“Textile-worshipping cult.”

 

“What?” Liam laughs now, a very pure sound.

 

“What the hell is _that?”_

 

“Nothing you want to know about.” Harry just shakes his head and Liam parrots the movement of nodding along.

 

“The world is our oyster, young Harold.” He sighed.

 

Harry got to hear one of Liam’s many Latin incantations then.

 

 _“‘Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat,’ - Fortune favours the bold._ Virgil said that. The world wouldn’t be the same place without us dreamers.”

 

Harry nods in agreement until Liam adds the last bit of,

 

“But my dreams of choking to death in my sleep died last summer so, maybe I’m not the right person to be assuring you those kinds of optimistic promises.”

 

“Alright, you win.” Harry laughs. “King of the Pit of Despair.”

 

“You haven’t met the rest of the park yet.”

 

He starts to think about Dante’s voyage through Hell with his poetic tour guide, Virgil and he suddenly gets the sensation that he’d done this all before. Maybe in a dream or something in a movie he’d saw last summer that he was now reliving in the flesh.

 

Maybe the funnel cake fumes permeating the air were starting to fill his head with a sugary haze but, Harry was actually having a good time walking through the park with Liam, stopping at a booth ever so often to learn how it’d been rigged to always spin losers and meeting other depressed gaming masters who all seemed to be on the same level of emotionally dead inside.

 

When he first got here today, the sight of preppy college boys with their snobby girlfriends, mobs of bratty 12-year-olds, and stressed parents he was going to be dealing with on a daily basis freaked him out a little and gave him slightly anarchic-summer vibes but, he’d relaxed a bit now. Taking notes from Liam to not sweat about anything happening in this alternate dimension he’d landed himself in or the strange creatures that dwelled in it.

 

It wasn’t even the fact that they were basically getting paid to slack off, joking about philosophers who’d lost their sanity and the shitty state of their lives. The air started feeling nicer here than it did everywhere else. Like the air above clouds. Then he realised they were going up the park at an incline.

 

It let him breathe easier, more wavier, like there was an open portal nearby somewhere.

 

It was when they got to the very centre of the park did Harry realise why.

 

Down the hill behind them, past the outer limits of the park, the ocean sat right in front of everything. He could even see the beach house he stayed in from here and smell that beach smell hanging fresh above the air.

 

It just went to show that the ocean really was the only one here that got to witness the whole world in its entirety instead of in segments like everyone else. It was the perfect centerpiece to make the park look exponentially more beautiful.

 

People running around looking like ants in a sandbox with their laugher filling all the empty spaces and diffusing into the beach air like mist. He could almost feel the spray of it. It sounded like a song.

 

“I always feel like a God from here.” Liam says from beside Harry, who’d forgot he was even there.

 

They stood there for a moment with their hands in their pockets as they overlooked the park from afar.

 

No, Harry wouldn’t hate it here. Not when the ocean is here.

 

Perrie walks by then and she gives Liam an excited two thumbs up before shouting for him to take his enthusiasm to a 10 for their “newbie”. She is indeed the happiest person in this entire park.

 

Harry gets the feeling that Liam is rolling his eyes behind his sunglasses as he gives her a thumbs up back with a blank face.

 

 _“Wave back. She’s the owner’s daughter.”_ Liam mutters to him under his breath.

 

“Hey Hazza!”

 

Harry waves to acknowledge her just so she’ll leave.

 

“Do you know that demented person?” Liam asks once she’s out of earshot.

 

He found it funny that Liam view cheerful enthusiasm as demonic. He’d never met anyone that didn’t worship Perrie. It was official that he loved Liam.

 

Harry shakes his head.

 

“Never seen her before in my life.”

 

After a full tour of every booth and colleague in the entire park and a four hour shift later, Liam and Harry end the evening with their break, eating corn dogs in the arcade, Liam playing pac-man while Harry watched.

 

“So your life must be utter shit,” Liam observes absently as he eats ghost faces on the screen.

 

“Or else you wouldn’t be here.”

 

Harry takes a bite of his corn dog with a slow nod.

 

“I guess you could say that.” He shrugs, “I sort of had this mental breakdown and got really wasted to the point where my cousin had to come rescue my unconscious body out of a ditch. My uncle threatened to kick me out if it ever happened again.” Harry snorted a little to himself.

 

“I guess he’s basically kicked me out anyways. He has good intentions though. Pretty sure getting me out of the house is just his way of trying to do me a favour, out of love or sympathy or something like that.”

 

“Why’s he want you out of the house?”

 

Harry thinks about that for a second before shrugging.

 

“I guess he thinks I’m either sad or an alcoholic.”

 

“Aren’t we all.” Liam sighs and Harry laughs, easily guessing which one Liam was. Probably both.

 

When he asks why Harry is having wild drunken nights out and mental breakdowns, Harry ends up telling him about how his last boyfriend brutally dumped him last weekend and how this was his last summer in America to basically find something meaningful to do with himself before joining a cult.

 

“So yeah, my life is utter shit right now. Or else I wouldn’t be here sentencing myself to Purgatory.”

 

“Story of my fucking life.” Liam shook his head slowly as he got to the 5th level of the game.

 

“Although joining a cult sounds like fun.”

 

Harry learned that Liam graduated from UCLA 2 years ago yet he’s been working at this park every summer since his freshman year of high-school. He could also relate to Harry’s currently loveless state of being as he’s also been single since his senior prom night after being dumped by his date, which Harry found hard to believe.

 

He could see Liam being prom King 6 years ago and dating one of the prettiest girls in school. The ones you see smiling throughout the mall in packs that every guy wanted in high school.

 

Liam was one of those guys who kept his jock-like looks after high-school but none of whatever contented happiness he once had… most likely because he was dating _girls_. Even looking at his baby face now, despite his dark circles you couldn’t tell he was a day over 12-years-old, let alone almost 25.

 

Niall walks into the arcade and Liam looks up from the game, removing his sunglasses completely for the first time as he calls after him.

 

“‘Sup?” Niall stops, smoothing back his distressed hair.

 

His eyes were narrowed to skinny slits like he’d just been napping for the past 4 hours. Either that or this guy is high as hell. He can’t imagine what he and Perrie talk about when they’re together.

 

“Have you seen Z today?” Liam asks about someone who apparently was a no call, no show at his booth. The one that was empty next to Niall’s.

 

“You didn’t show me that one.” Harry points out, to which Liam tells him is because it’s not a rigged gaming booth.

 

“Only one person runs that booth every summer and he sort of shows up whenever he feels like because he used to blow the previous park manager and has since had the freedom to pretty much do whatever he wants.”

 

Harry notes that Louis sounds like an _interesting_ character and is both relieved and disappointed that he didn’t meet him today.

 

Niall says Z didn’t cover Louis’ shift for him today like how he was supposed to before trudging off. Liam resumes his game with a slightly worried brow.

 

Behind them, a college-aged straight couple were making out against the pinball machine. It was a gorgeous black girl with curly hair like Medusa and heavy eye shadow getting sucked into the mouth of one of the preppy blonde boys that must’ve broke out of the herd from earlier.

 

He sort of looked like Will from behind if he were taller.

 

Aside from them, the arcade was relatively empty this late in the evening.

 

It wasn’t until then that Harry realised he liked Will way more than he thought he did. Or at least, the idea of him. Even though it’s only been a week, watching the couple make-out made him kind of miss having someone to do stuff like that with.

 

Liam finishes the next level of the game before he tells Harry he needs to make a phone call, hastily rushing off after encouraging him to pick a booth to close for the night without him.

 

Fearing the risk of losing a giant-ass panda at Niall’s bottles station, Harry chooses to close the booth across from it instead.

 

It was some convoluted game where the object is to spray a water gun into a little hole that fills up one of the balloons on the other side of the wall to see who’d be the first one’s to explode. Liam told him that the green one always wins no matter what happens so, he needed to make sure someone always sat there and that whichever boy he chose to sit in the green chair “better be beautiful enough to surpass Will.”

 

He appreciated how easily Liam understood him although, Harry doesn't think he's ever seen a boy before that he would consider to being beautiful. That was a pretty strong word. That's how he'd describe something like the ocean. Or even better,  _The_ _Ocean._

 

Just out of curiosity, Harry tries to see if this game is really rigged.

 

He sets up two water balloons to start filling up, both the yellow balloon and the red one without putting any money in the green one.

 

For a while, they fill up normally until out of _nowhere,_ the green balloon starts to fill up without him touching it.

 

 _“Wow…”_ Harry crouches down in front of it in awe like he was watching a magician performing some kind of magic trick.

 

“How are you _doing_ that?” He murmurs as he examines it closely.

 

It looks like it’s filling with air rather than water like the rest, which - clever.

 

It mesmerises him for an instant until he notices something on the other side of his booth. Or _someone._

 

He was posted up at a booth that didn’t look anything like what he’d seen in the whole park.

 

There were no bottles or mannequins or giant-ass pandas strung up around him nor were there any electrical outlets or signs to indicate what kind of game it was. Just a wooden box with a single person sitting inside with a simple bowl sitting on his table like some kind of fortune teller with a crystal ball. He was strange seeing someone there when Harry swore it was empty a few minutes ago, as if he'd just entered through a portal and appeared out of thin air. Something about his vibe felt cosmic like that.

 

Harry would have wondered about why the mystery surrounding what kind of game it was if he weren’t so distracted by the actual person inside.

 

He was sitting on the table and, unlike Liam and Niall with the high-end aviators, he was wearing cheap sunglasses with hot pink frames shaped like stars that comically took over half of his face as he was leaning back against the far side of his booth so he faced Harry.

 

He looked really young, maybe about Perrie or Niall’s age and he napped at his post with one leg was dangling limp other the edge of his booth while the other was prompt up so his arm could dangle over his knee. His pose made him look like some zone-out starlet that'd been sitting there for hours rather than a few minutes. ike he was waiting to be misted with Avion or fed grapes from a servant.

 

Maybe it was the fact that he was so still that he couldn’t even tell he was breathing or maybe it was the way Harry couldn’t see his whole face but, he looked like a statue.

 

The way you couldn’t see his eyes made him look distanced from the park, too. Like he wasn’t actually there but silently observing the activity around him while he himself stayed invisible behind the scenes, he too a visiting outsider from beyond this bizarre dimension like Harry. No one else seemed to notice him there as his booth was empty.

 

Harry didn’t know why he stared for so long but, something about the way his long black hair blew in the breeze felt _hauntingly_ familiar. Like a scene from a reoccurring dream just replayed in Harry's head right before his eyes. Then, he smiled.

 

Apparently, he wasn’t asleep at all and was staring right back at Harry. He suddenly felt like he was being laughed at and it made him blush to be caught in the act.

 

His shirt was a blushing pink with red outlining, uniform just like Harry’s. Only his had 2 words printed across the front in cursive.

 

_Kiss me_

 

His smile suddenly seemed inviting, the kind of smile that all lips _dreamed_ to kiss. He tilted his head sideways, nodded towards Harry, the motion seemingly telling him to look behind him.

 

Harry looked back at what he was doing finally and realised why he was smiling. His balloons had gotten completely out of control without anyone manning them, all blown up to the very max after he’d let the hose on. Just as he jumps to switch it off, they explode with water and drench the front of his jeans, _right_ on his crotch so it looks like a perfect wet stain of piss. He gasps at the freezing cold shock of it and finally manages to stop the hose from going haywire all over the booth.

 

When he looks back, the long-haired boy hops off his booth and turns the sign with the money symbol down so it reads _break - will be back._

 

Harry gets a load of what’s on the back of his shirt

 

_... if you dare._

 

This wasn’t just some rudimentary kissing game - it was a _challenge_.

 

Intrigued, Harry shuts off the water so he can go over and ask him how the challenge to kiss him worked. Before he could do anything else to see for himself that it wasn’t all some vivid hallucination from a daydream, he was gone.

 

Something inside Harry told him he’d just spotted the ever elusive _Z._ And the brief encounter left him dazed.

 

He was beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll continue this sporadically I guess


	2. Week 2

* * * * *

 

The boy Harry decidedly referred to as “Z at the kissing booth” may have disappeared from the park immediately after Harry discovered him but he did not disappear from Harry’s mind, not once. Not for the rest of that entire weekend Harry had off. Not even in his sleep.

  


The weird dreams had already started manifesting the week before he got to Adventureland. After the night he saw those guys having sex on the beach, one of them just decided to hop into Harry’s head a pitch a tent up there.

  


It should be noted that about 50% of Harry’s dreams were of him being a sailor of the 7 seas, the other 50% a blurring mixture of lucid dreams about flying through space on mopeds and shooting at aliens throughout the galaxy or making out with whoever he had a crush on that week - general miscellaneous dreams whose grip he’d crawl out from under after all the details have vanished.  

  


Since he moved, he’s had this recurring nightmare of trying to reach something on land but the beach is always getting further away from him no matter how long he sails towards it. The ocean spray would fill his whole body with this numbing coldness that chills him from the inside out and not in a good way. It was a cold and empty feeling being out there on his own. The worst part about it is not knowing what he’s racing towards or what will happen when he gets there. It looks like a beach but feels like the edge of a cliff.

  


It could be a mermaid or a siren washed up on the shore, calling him to his doom. Or just an ordinary human being forever waiting for him to return from being lost at sea. Or even worse, nothing at all. Just a long and pointless journey leading him nowhere.

  


Sometimes, he’s got a sailboat, other nights a speedboat carrying him away from what sounds like apocalyptic anarchy stalled at the horizon in the distance. What stays consistent is that he is always on this ship alone.

  


There’s always a chilling atmosphere to it. This ambient, slightly hostile feel that he’s completely stranded on this wild ride that’s out of his control while music plays manically in the distance similar to how thunder sounds when it’s far away. It was probably his subconsciousness sending him benign reminders about the stagnant ride to nowhere he’s failing to avoid every day.

  


So he had that same dream of speeding through the ocean like he normally does the week before he got his new job only this time, there was someone there with him on the ride. He just didn’t know who it was or remember what he even looked like, but he knew it was one of the boys sexing it up the beach. And he finally knew where they were going.

  


It was called Boyland. All the dreamy guys partied there at night.

  


They were lying down on the deck of the boat, entangled in a mess of each other the whole way there. Not in a sexual way. In a way like they were two halves connected as one whole person the way the playwright, Aristophanes describes how human bodies originally looked with four arms, four legs and two heads facing each other, connected by their lips.

  


Harry supposed it was his spiritually ancient subconsciousness’ form of a modern day make out session.

  


Even in his dreams, music was playing in his head constantly like background static on a radio signal, the same spacey echo of the Ocean’s voice that had been dusted with a bit of 1967 psychedelia.

  


In fact, that was the title of the song playing. _“1967”._ Only last night, something was different.

  


The faceless entity accompanying Harry might not have had a face but, he had a _name_.

  


_“Kiss me,”_ Z whispered into his ear with lips that wove a song, wet with promises of sweet nothings, caressing Harry’s body as they wrapped their arms around each other in a sugary embrace.

  


His words were a warm, sonic wave of music. And his eyes were stars.

  


_“I dare you.”_

  


Harry couldn’t hear his actual voice, as if where he was whispering was from a distance that got trapped in an echo chamber underwater. But Harry still understood what was being said as the sound of Z’s voice flowed from his mouth in waves, white as noise.

  


It was like listening to the ocean speak directly to him. It gave Harry a wicked chill.

  


Then, Harry realised something huge.

  


It was _Z_ who was waiting for Harry to join him on the beach.

  


Before Harry could close the gap and taste his perfectly kissable lips, the waves that were carrying them along suddenly crashed against an empty beach ahead. All the party goers that were promised to be in Boyland had disappeared. The jolt sent them both soaring off through the air in separate directions and just as fast as Harry’s other half had arrived, Z had disappeared too.

  


Harry snapped out of his dreamscape, waking up with his massive headphones still on and playing his music all night long in his ears. A dull ache of wishing to find someone to entangle with bubbled in his chest as he tried to recall his dream again. It made him want to touch himself.

  


He turned off his music and took a cold shower instead.

  


All weekend long, he had the same dream. Each time, he woke up with missing faces and absent voices, pieces of himself he’d leave behind in his strange dreamland. He was starting to feel haunted by him, the boy from his nightmarish fantasy. Every time, they died in a new way. Shipwreck. Riptide generated from a tsunami. Maybe he was being dramatic but he had a gut feeling this was a sign that he needed to find Z and confront him if he ever wanted to get him out of his head, like confronting a ghost to get it to move on. At least see his face and hear his voice so the mystery would end.

  


After the weekend ended and he returned to his second week at work, Harry starts by trying to discover his ghosts actual name and any other important details he should know via Liam.

  


It was the first thing he asked as soon as he saw Liam clock in inside of the office next to the arcade.

  


“Who?” Liam squinted at him, not fully awake yet as he put on his shades and drank from the coffee he desperately needed.

 

"Didn't take you for a Starbucks kind of lad."

 

"I definitely don't fuck with Starbucks. Their caffeine alters reality."

 

Harry looked at the siren on his mug with a raised eyebrow.

 

"Then what are you supposed to be drinking?"

 

"LSD."

  


Liam still had not failed to make Harry laugh.

 

The dark circles under his eyes were even deeper than a few days ago as if he hasn’t slept in the last 2 days he’s had off. His weekend had the word WILD written all over his body.

  


“Why do you always look like you’ve been up either on coke-binge or having sex all night long?” Harry smiles in confusion.

  


Liam gives him a serious stare down in response with a flat mouth before he says what he’s about to say next without denying either of the two.

  


“Harold… I am at day 37 without sex. If I was going to be having a coke-binge, it wouldn’t have been just this weekend.”

  


Harry had no experience to gauge if this was good or bad.

  


“Is that a long time…?” He asked.

  


“That’s an eternity.” Liam sips his coffee. They switch places so Harry can clock in next.

  


“I went down to Boyland last night and did coke on the bar in front of security just so a man would handcuff me and I almost spent the night in jail. That’s how desperate I’ve been getting.”

  


“Kinky.” Harry smiles, both delighted and baffled by the mental image of Liam not only hanging out with all the other L.A. gays but also raging just as hard as any other.

  


Harry needed to go out to a nightclub with Liam pronto if that’s how he gets down at nighttime just from the picture he had of Liam is his clubbing get-up that probably went something like tight leather pants that shined brighter than Harry’s future and a cropped top in the same fabric. Maybe some guy-liner and chains around his waist.

  


Based on his current wardrobe, Harry suspected that’s what he was into, realising his eyes aren’t naturally _that_ dark around them all on their own.

  


“Anyways, who were you asking me about again?” Liam switches the subject away from his nightly activities, back to Harry.

  


“This guy that works here… he’s got long black hair, pink glasses… possibly stoned?”

  


Harry resisted the urge to describe him as _dreamy_.

  


“Oh… him.” Liam trailed off as he turned away from Harry slowly to drink his caffeine, not saying if he actually knew anything about him or not.

  


He was too in his head to notice Liam’s hesitancy to talk about him. It didn’t matter how early it was in meeting someone. When Harry got interested in anything at all, he got _completely_ immersed into that person. All it took was one glance and his mind wouldn’t be able to think of anything else.

  


_“Yeah…_ that’s Z.”

  


“Yes, him! What's his name?”

  


“Good question.”

  


Apparently, Liam didn't know him that well but Harry got the feeling he wasn’t being totally honest about that. Anyone Harry asked would say they don't remember what his real name was. He's been going by the last letter of the alphabet since the beginning of time. The only time anyone ever sees him in during the summer.

  


Harry was beginning to feel like he really was on the hunt for some cosmic being with the way words describing him fail and tales recounting more to his existence end with a question mark.

  


“He’s cool, right?” Harry carefully tried to get something solid out of Liam, who clearly knew more. That is, assuming Liam would know if Z is someone who hangs out in the same places that _they_ do at nighttime. For some reason, he felt like Liam’s gaydar was much stronger than his own.

  


“I mean… do you think he’d be like, interested in--”

  


“Forget it, Harry.” Perrie entered the office as they were leaving, shooting it down like she’d been listening to their whole conversation on the other side of the door and already knew where Harry’s brain was.

  


From the look she gave him, she knew he was in the first phase of infatuation and bordering on obsessed.

  


“You don’t even know what I wanted to know!” He protested.

  


“Trust me, I do. _Whatever_ it is that you want from him, just forget it. Don’t ask him to cover your shift. Don’t ask him for a ride. Don’t ask him to babysit anyone, not even your pet goldfish. Don’t ask him to be your proxy in case you ever get terminal cancer, just don’t put any general faith in him or high expectation from level zero.” Perrie huffs as they all leave the office after she clocks in.

  


“That kid is the most irresponsible person I know and he is literally never here when he’s supposed to be and even if he is, he has the shortest attention span of anyone I’ve ever fucking met in my life. I mistakenly asked him to babysit my little brother like 2 summers ago and I came back home to him knowing how to make a bong out of an apple.”

  


Harry felt it would be inappropriate to laugh as Perrie rants. Now he knows how little Austin knew what Harry’s “tea kettle” really was that sits next to his bed. His argument was that bong water technically _is_ a kind of tea.

  


“I basically have to babysit him just to make sure he’s staying out of trouble and doing his fucking job instead of slacking off in some back room and getting high with Niall.”

  


It was one thing to pillage the night but it was clear that Perrie took her job very seriously so Harry could understand where she was coming from. But that wasn’t stopping him from loving how much this guy stressed her out enough to make her completely act like the adult Harry believed she really was.

  


With that very strongly worded recommendation, Harry only wants to know more about him. His stories were fascinating.

  


After Perrie leaves, Liam tells Harry that she’s not exaggerating.

  


He recounts an incident that happened last summer when Z worked in rides and left some drunk idiot in the space shuttle alone overnight after he closed it early without bothering to check if anyone was still in there, narrowly avoiding a lawsuit when the guy almost starved to death being locked inside for a full 3-day holiday weekend during the 4th of July.

  


Harry actually remembers that story being in the national news last year, all the protests and how stressed out uncle John was dealing with a settlement that had him out of nearly a quarter of a million dollars.  

  


His mind is now blown that the entire debacle was all because of 1 kid and even more blown that he wasn’t fired because of it.

  


Liam tells him he’s still here because no one else but him ever found out who did it. And now Harry knows who to go to if he ever had a secret he didn't want to get out - proof that Liam knew way more about him than he was letting on.

  


Liam didn’t seem to hate Z as much as Perrie did, even telling Harry if he’s ever looking for Z, he’s usually closer than what it might seem.

  


Harry didn’t know what that meant… until a few hours later.

  


It wasn’t exactly an accident that Harry ended up at a station next to the kissing booth later on that day.

  


He knew Z would be there again at some point because word on the street was that Louis T. wasn’t coming back to Adventureland this summer. But when he got there, the kissing booth was empty again and remained that way for the next 2 hours.

  


He contemplated checking out what was in the bowl and maybe what was in the mysterious booth itself and what secrets it held but he was too chicken shit about getting caught in the act.

  


“Hey, Harry.” Niall stops at the front of the line at Harry’s booth in the middle of a horse race with 8 kids sitting lined across his station, waiting their turn to play.

  


“Niall.” Harry sits up straight all of the sudden, reminded that if anyone knows anything else about Z, it _could_ be him.

  


“Hey, do you know if--”

  


Niall cuts him off.

  


“Do you mind watching my booth for like 10 minutes?”

  


Harry glances over at the bottles station, the people all throwing their rings over the wall and the panda’s dangling menacingly from the top then back at Niall slowly.

  


He knows he should say no. But for some reason, he figured all he had to do was watch all those people waste their money trying to toss rings onto bottle made out of rubber so, how hard could it be?

  


“Thanks man!” Niall runs off towards where the backroom is, presumably to get high, and Harry rolls his eyes.

  


Not even 5 minutes later, the _unspeakable_ happens. In a split second of Harry turning his back, someone’s ring lands on a red bottle. Which means someone just won a giant-ass panda on Harry’s watch.

  


That was the first thing Liam told him about working in games. Don’t turn your fucking back for even a _second._

  


“Hey that little kid just won!” Someone in the crowd shouts when Harry turns around and the blood drains out of his face and turns to ice in his body.

  


_‘Shit… SHIT!’_ He chanted in his head as he speeds over as calmly as possible.

  


On the way, he notices a little kid climbing back over the wall with another guys help and he realises something even worse; they fucking _cheated_.

  


The man he’s with that Harry approaches is over 6 feet tall, wearing an American flag as a headband and denim from head to toe with a toothpick jammed into his ugly yellow teeth. He looks like one of those people that dropped in from the deep south after crawling out of a trailer park that could spit bullets from a mile away from his target. He also reeks of being a walking ashtray and the look he gives Harry when he smiles looks like it has a threat hidden in it.

  


“My kid just won.” He spits in a deep, Texas drawl. “I think that earns him a giant panda bear, right?”

  


Harry swallows before he opens his mouth to say what he says next.

  


“Um, _sir_ ,” His voice cracks so he clears his throat as he picks the ring off the bottle head.

  


“I just saw him on this side of the wall. That’s, um…” Harry lowers his voice to a whisper.

  


“That’s _cheating.”_

  


“You weren’t even standing over here!” The little kid screams, stomping his feet angrily.

  


“I won fair and square and I want my prize _NOW!”_

  


Harry looks at his dad again, who nods along.

  


“Looks like my kid says he won fair and square, sir.”

  


“Look, mister,” Harry lowers his voice again and leans closer to the dad.

  


_“I could lose my job.”_

  


Off to the side, Z peeks his head around the corner of the wall of Harry’s booth as he’s trying to appeal to this guy’s non-existent better nature, looking through his star-eyed glasses to see the scene in front of him. But Harry was too distracted by his life flashing before his eyes to notice.

  


The man subtly raises his denim jacket to show Harry that he’s packing a very large knife on the side of his hip. He leans in so close that Harry can smell his atomic-dick breath.

  


_“Look faggot, why don’t you just give the kid a fuckin’ panda?”_

  


The message was pretty damn clear. At this point, Harry was frozen solid in shock as his life was being threatened.

  


Was he willing to fucking die for this goddamn panda? His saviour answered that question for him.

  


A blur of motion on his side caught his eye first as one of the panda bears pulls out of it’s noose and walks itself over to the asshole kid and his asshole father.

  


For a minute there, it freakishly looks like the panda has sprouted two human arms and legs to walk all by itself… until Harry sees the ocean of smooth black ringlets of hair spilled over his shoulders from behind it’s back.

  


When he spoke, it was like Harry had just been thrown back into a dream.

  


_“Here you go, here’s your panda.”_ He sings as he hands off the toy with a sweet smile that almost looked real.

  


_It was him!_

  


For the life of him, he couldn’t understand why his voice seemed so familiar. Then he remembered… he’s dreamt about it, playing in music.

  


Z handed off the goods then climbed over the wall to stand next to Harry as they watched the bloated mass of slobbering, malodorous flesh leave with his little con artist. Harry waited until they were completely out of earshot before he said anything.

  


“Am I going to get into trouble?” He asked as he looked at the stars in his glasses, trying to find his face like he always does in his sleep.

  


“No one’s ever supposed to lose a giant-ass panda,”

  


He pulled his glasses up so they pushed his hair back away from his face as he looked at Harry in a way that gave him butterflies. All he could stare at for a few seconds too long was how his lips looked with the rest of his face.

  


Soft. Lips that wrote words that could convince _anyone_ to kiss him. And if he didn’t feel like opening his mouth well… there were his eyes.

  


He was ridiculously dewy-eyed, honey brown like gold with dark specks of liquid drops the colour of iced tea which complimented the feel of something sweet about him. Maybe it was how they were framed with equally ridiculously long eyelashes, black as night and thick as ever. Or the freckles lightly peppered around the creases of his eyes and over his nose with other spots of melanin all over his perfectly shaven face. Harry had no idea why he’d ever want to hide such beautiful eyes from the world.

  


He didn’t look so startlingly young up close but, it was impossible to guess his age.

  


He looked like the kind of guy Harry could only dream about. A total babe, no doubt the single most gorgeous person he’d ever seen. And he was looking at _Harry_.

  


Harry swallows.

  


“Would it have been worth being shanked over?” Z asks, wincing and suppressing a laugh.

  


Unexpectedly, Harry notices that he’s British as well with a sort of throaty, northern English baritone.

  


Harry blinks out of his stupor then, sticking out his hand to introduce himself.

  


“I’m new by the way.” He rushes as he shakes his hand. “Harry. I just started.”

  


He seems taken off guard with the handshake as he laughs.

  


“Oh. Um, Zed.” He gestures to himself with two dainty hands over his chest. Every other finger had a silver ring like he wore a meat beater. Harry couldn’t help imagining what his pretty hands would look like squeezing around his neck.

  


“Or you can call me _“Zee”_ as the Americans say.”

  


Harry laughed. He liked Zee way better. That was his name in all his dreams.

  


“So what do you think of Adventureland so far, Harry? Feel free to talk as much shit as you want.”

  


“Well, it’s only my second day here but I’m kind of wondering when they’re going to burn the place down to be quite honest.”

  


The feeling of making Z laugh made his heart throb so hard that he has to play off his awe by laughing as well. Z’s joyous laughter instantly became Harry’s favourite sound. He tells Harry it could be worse. He could’ve been shot at like the old bottle guy a few summers ago. Still finished his shift though.

  


RIP.

  


Turned out, Liam’s joke about being shot here wasn’t really a joke at all.

  


“Sucks that you’re gonna lose your job on your second day, Harry.” Z sighs and Harry’s face drops as he looks around, briefly having forgot what just happened.

  


“Oh… _shit,”_ He mutters, looking back at Z.

  


“I _can’t_ get fired from this job. I’ll be deported!”

  


Z takes his fear of his uncle as Harry being overly dramatic.

  


_“I’m kidding.”_ Z puts his hands up innocently. “You’re _fine_. I’ll tell Pez you lost the panda at knifepoint.”

  


Harry thanks him for that. God knows Uncle John would never believe Harry if he tried to explain that.

  


“If that fails, we could always blame Niall. She hates his guts anyways.” Z shrugs as they see Niall trudging back over from his little break.

  


He waves at the two of them, unaware of them plotting to frame him as they both laugh. Niall looks past them and waves again.

  


“Yo Kevin!” He shouts, giving a man in the distance two devil horns.

  


_“Rock oooon!”_

  


Harry looks towards Kevin, an older guy that looks like Jesus strolling through the park with a guitar case that suggests he’s some kind of musician. Unlike everyone else, he’s not wearing a games t-shirt or a rides one to indicate what he does here. Just a cool leather jacket with sunglasses and his guitar like a rockstar. He also has a toolbag.

  


Z pulls his stars back down over his eyes as they watch him pass by cooly without acknowledging either of them aside from a nod towards Niall.

  


“Who’s that?” Harry asks curiously.

  


“Kevin Parker.”

  


Harry nods.

  


“He’s the maintenance guy.” Z tells him from someplace that feels suddenly not here. Maybe Harry should get a pair of sunglasses like everyone else so he could summon being transformed into an aloof game worker as well.

  


“He’s married.” Z also adds, out of the blue.

  


Harry gives him a strange look in response. It came out like an impulsive form of vomit.

  


Before he can ask anything else to continue trying to further the conversation, Z hops over the wall again and walks away, back from wherever he disappears off to.

  


“Later, Harry.” He tosses over his shoulder. “Try not to get killed.”

  


Just like that, he was gone. Again.

  


Their interactions stayed brief like that for all week. It turned out that Liam was completely right about Z. How he always seemed to be close by. Whenever Harry was looking for him, he’d never be able to find him. It wasn’t until the split second of Z finally leaving his mind did he decide to appear in-person again to reignite what was going from being a simple infatuation to a full on obsession.

  


Sometimes, he’s just walking by eating a corndog. Other times, he’s lounging lazily on a booth that wasn’t his in random spots around the park that Harry happened to be at. Always with his starry eyes - the same ways he started appearing in every single one of Harry’s dreams. Walking around in the background of Harry’s music concert, eating phallic foods and posed like the zoned-out starlet from your favourite MTV film.

  


They hadn’t actually spoke since the panda incident but, he always acknowledged Harry when he passed by with a simple wave or nod. The biggest thing Harry could never figure out that he was growing exponentially more curious about was the whole kissing booth thing.

  


Not once had he seen Z there actually doing his job. It was like Harry was the only person that noticed his booth was _always_ empty.

  


One day, Harry tested out the theory that as long as he was thinking about Z, he wouldn’t show up. He hoped for the sake of his dignity that this theory would work so he could check out Z’s booth without getting caught. He just needed to figure this guy out already.

  


During closing hours, Harry sneakily made his way to Z’s station and ducked behind it before anyone could notice. Not that they would. Everyone that worked in the park would be gathering at the front main exit just about right now like they do at the end of every night, gossiping together about their workday, saying their goodbyes to each other or waiting for their rides home.   
  
  
They weren’t allowed to leave the park for the weekend until there was 100% certainty that the whole place was empty (thanks to Z). He waited until he seen the last few workers slowly filtering to the front of the park, nervous about entering a realm that was all belonging to one singular person and not shared by many like the rest of the booths.

  


Harry imagined Z somewhere across the park suddenly looking up after getting the sense that someone was trespassing through his domain, almost expecting a vortex to rip open right then and there and Z to come out of it questioning Harry about what he was doing.

  


All that was back here was a pair of black and white Chuck Taylors, a t-shirt with an obscure picture of someone standing in the ocean and a bowl of hand-written notes. There was also a 20-ounce bottle of Cuban rum next to a rolled joint.

  


Harry reaches his hand into the bowl to pick out a note.

  


_“You wanna take a dare?”_

  


Harry yelps with a start as he snaps up when Z’s voice startles him from up above. Instantly Harry is standing again, a bit embarrassed and guilty to be caught. Again.

  


In the literal split second of Harry not thinking about Z, of course he showed up.

  


Despite his embarrassment, Harry was actually glad to see him. He always was.

  


There he was, smiling in his dumb glasses with his hands jammed down into his pockets, leaning against the wooden beam over Harry. He almost went to look for whatever secret vortex he kept coming out of.  Instead, he apologised.

  


“I’m sorry,”

  


“Don’t be.” Z laughed, with a sideways shrug that said there were no worries.

  


Something about his smirk looked like he was too cool to smile all the way. His movements weren’t that animated or lively but he was about the only person harry seen here that didn't look like he hated this place, aside from P. Like life was all just whatever. He liked how his carefree vibe still felt very Californian despite his completely out of place accent.

  


He seemed so relaxed that it even made Harry calm down, like he was worrying about nothing.

  


“Go ahead and pick a dare.”

  


Harry didn’t completely understand how the game worked yet, looking back down at the bowl of notes.

  


“What happens if I pick a dare…?”

  


“Let’s find out.”

  


Z hopped behind the booth with one swift movement and pulled the bowl out before sitting it on the table, gesturing for Harry to sit across from him so, Harry does with his heart pounding the whole time.

  


As he reaches for a dare with sweaty palms, Z stops him with his hand over Harry’s. Goosebumps spread up his arm when his words hit Harry’s ears, sounding way closer than he actually was..

  


_“Close your eyes first.”_ His voice had dropped into a whisper.

  


So does Harry’s heartbeat when he closes his eyes. All his nervousness from before disappears like magic as he takes his dare without cold feet.

  


It was the dare that he’s been waiting for. The one from his dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone asked about the Zayn/Louis to Harry timeline so I'll just tell you that it overlaps (if you've ever seen Adventureland, quite a few of the characters are kind of dating multiple people at the same time) Harry meets Louis in week 4


	3. The weekend

 

* * * * *  


The second Harry closed his eyes, he regretted it.

 

No, he had nothing against kissing some guy he didn’t even know. In fact he was pretty stoked about it. Every sensation suddenly became heightened between them and he was comfortable with it. Sitting less than a few inches apart, being totally alone together somewhere in the land between bare skin and personal space. Sharing so much of the same air that they were practically breathable to each other.

 

He was only regretting closing his eyes because of what Z dared him to do.

 

“I dare you to find me.”

 

 _I dare you to try and kiss me_ is what Harry heard.

 

As if that wasn’t what Harry spent 99% of his time here doing already. It was like he already knew that Harry was always trying to find him.

 

He sits up straight and leans in really fast just so he wouldn’t have time to dodge it, assuming that’s how Z played this game.

 

By the way he met with air instead of another pair of lips and heard Z chuckling somewhere vaguely in front of him, he knew that he was completely off. He couldn’t stop the big goofy smile that spread across his face anyways.

 

Silence fell over him, trying to listen for where the sound of Z’s breathing would be coming from. The thing was, he wasn’t hearing anything. But he _felt_ Z there.

 

All the whirling rides and musical games had been turned off for the night except for the blast of The Replacements “Bastards Of Young” they play at the end of every shift, 800 fucking times a day.

 

Aside from that, all the people with their loud conversations and chaotic laughter had moved to the front of the park and faded away. The only other thing Harry heard was the unsettling sound of his own heart excitedly pounding away at a drumbeat played by Z, none other than the other human being right in front of him although he didn’t feel entirely human. Something more otherworldly than human.

 

There was that intensity that comes from looking someone straight in the eye that leaves you feeling a bit vulnerable and exposed with his closed now. Almost like Z could see straight through his eyelids. Maybe he could.

 

He didn’t know how to explain it but it was like he could _feel_ his eyes on him and that did not change even when he couldn’t see Z.

 

Whenever Harry was near him, his presence was somewhere slightly there and not, leaving Harry feeling betwixt and between. These sensations were driving his body wild with anticipation. Maybe that was the point. How he could always see him and feel him there but all Harry wanted was to touch him.

 

After a second and third unsuccessful try of aimlessly kissing the air, he started feeling like an idiot. Just as he was about to open his eyes, Z spoke again, softly.

 

“It’s okay. I’m still here.”

 

He was close but, not close enough for Harry to know where he was. He wanted him to keep talking so he could follow his voice.

 

“Am I warm?”

 

Harry moves sideways and freezes when a whisper comes right near his ear .

 

_“Very.”_

 

Z was so close that he could feel his breath tickle him and even smell his cologne, something airy and cool like ocean water.

 

He was right beside Harry now and it gave him chills. He could picture Z’s smile even without looking and it feels _so_ so sensual. He was definitely teasing him and it made it worse that Harry was enjoying it this much.

 

All he had to do was turn slightly to the left and they’re lips would touch.

 

Slowly, Harry turned to feel his face brushing right at the edge of another. He held his breath and waited for the gap to close itself.

 

Maybe it would’ve if Perrie’s loudmouth hadn’t showed up next.

 

“Zayn Malik!”

 

Harry opens his eyes before anything else can happen, startled.

 

The stars were gone from his eyes again so Harry was again taken off guard with how dauntingly gorgeous he was up close. But not as taken off guard as he was when he saw just how much personal space they were invading.

 

He was crouched in front of Harry, having moved to his side of the booth completely with his wrists dangling over his knees and his pupils were dilated really wide. It almost distracted Harry away from noticing Z’s flaming red cheeks and the flush glowing over his nose.

 

He was blushing pretty hard and his eyes were so wide… he looked like he’d just seen a ghost. Harry didn’t understand why until he looked down after feeling something strange.

 

Harry had a boner. Cue absolute, horrified embarrassment.

 

Z stands up before Harry does, facing Perrie as she marches over, ready to curse them both out for slacking off while Harry closes his legs, holding his head as he faces away, ready to die right then and there.

 

A _boner,_ God what is he, 9? To Harry, it was the bodily equivalent to a drive-by shooting and even then, he would’ve rather taken that.

 

“What the hell are you still doing back here _\--”_

 

“I’m sorry,” Harry quickly stood up too, careful not to move his hand away from his crotch. “It was my fault. He just came back here to get his stuff and ended up helping me close my booth so I offered to help close his.”

 

He realised this was the first time he’s told a lie this easily. Like it was the truth. Even Z looked at him with raised brows, impressed with how quick he just came up with it, which Harry didn’t like. They still didn’t know each other. Still in the stage of first impressions. He didn’t want to give him the impression that he told lies.

 

He looked at Perrie after and nodded in agreement with Harry, fully fine with not taking the fall for messing around on the clock.

 

“Yeah… blame your cousin the next time you catch me slacking off again. He’s _very_ distracting.”

 

It was Harry’s turn to blush now when Z subtly bumps him with his hip. He would’ve shoved him for that if he weren’t trying so hard not to look… well, hard.

 

Perrie narrows her eyes at the two of them, both plastering on their fake smiles although, Z’s was more of himself repressing hysterical laughter.

 

She doesn’t question Harry any further. Afterall, she knows he’s not a liar.

 

She backs away, gesturing for Harry to come with her.

 

“He doesn’t need help getting his stuff.”

 

Z smiles over at Harry with his lips folded in and his hand digging into his back pockets.

 

“It’s cool. I’ll catch up with you guys.”

 

“Yea-- yeah that sounds… that sounds _great_ ,” Harry trips over his feet as he’s backing away, which makes Z burst out a snort that he quickly catches with his hand, looking away from Harry to choke on his laughter.

 

“We’ll wait for you.”

 

Z gives him a thumbs up without looking back again as he ducks behind his booth to gather his things to go home, leaving Harry to be dragged away.

 

Surprisingly, he was more ready to burst into tears laughing than he was embarrassed anymore. He should've been trying to get the hell out of here as soon as possible to hide his face in shame but…  he really was going to wait for him just to properly say goodbye to each other.

 

“Come on!” Perrie huffs, pulling his arm so he stumbles again.

 

He looks back over his shoulder and sees a faint smile still lingering on Z’s lips as he takes off his shirt, changing into a new one. He had a chest tattoo. And _very_ nice abs.

 

He looks up at Harry once as they make eye contact. And the fucker smirks.

 

_‘God help me,”_

 

“Jesus H. Christ Harry, you’re _fawning.”_ She hisses once they’re far away enough to be out of earshot.

 

Harry only ignores her as he bites his lip in and looked away.

 

_Zayn Malik._

 

It was a good, proper name. He liked it just as much as he liked his one letter. Even though he didn’t know much … he still _really_ liked him.

 

He didn’t think anyone in this park could do a better job running a kissing booth. All he did was _breathe_ on Harry and he almost came. He can’t imagine what actually touching him would’ve done. Spontaneous combustion, probably.

 

He walks away feeling like he’d just kissed a boy for the first time even though it was more like a lip graze. The awkward, uninvited erection being so close in vicinity to it was almost totally forgotten now as he thought about what could’ve happened next. What he’d taste like and how a moment like that could be set up without the booth next time.

 

Perrie watches him with her brows knit together as they go. She and Harry both knew he had a crush that was developing pretty fast and usually, she’d be happy for him whenever he met someone. But this time it only worried her.

 

Every boy in this park and Harry had to chose _that_ one to start crushing on.

 

“What’s wrong.” Harry doesn’t even have to look at her when he asks this, his tone bleak now as he rolls his eyes.

 

“Every single time I even mention him, you get that look on your face. So what’s wrong with him.”

 

Perrie just walks along the way in beat of silence.

 

“For one thing, he’s too young for you.” She finally starts.

 

“You can’t lose your virginity to someone you’re a senior to.”

 

“I am just _barely_ scratching the surface of my 20s. Please don’t start filing for a pension just yet.”

 

“You’re _twenty-two.”_ She accentuates every letter like she just spelled it out with her mouth.

 

“ _22_. And he’s radioactive.”

 

Harry squints in confusion. For a moment, he almost thinks he heard her saying 'unattractive', which would've left Harry even more confused to think that Perrie was suddenly blind.

 

“Is that a metaphor for something?”

 

“No. It’s meant to be taken literal, Lit major.”

 

According to Perrie, Zayn had loads of rumours about him around here. Serious rumours.

 

His father was apparently a mad scientist from Pakistan that aided the US military in their nuclear proliferation and helped work on the atomic bomb during the war, which would explain the rumours about Zayn’s house and everything in it being radioactive, including Zayn himself.

 

“That’s why you can always feel his presence. _Radiation.”_

 

Harry would’ve said he thought that was completely ridiculous and maybe even prejudice in some twisted way? But that was until Perrie went on to tell him that’s how his mum died of cancer a few years ago.

 

Rumour or not, it was the strangest thing Harry had ever heard. But that didn’t stop him from being intrigued.

 

It was true… he could feel his presence. Even with his eyes closed. And maybe it _was_ weird. That didn’t make him radioactive.

 

“Okay so aside from all that, what else do you know?”

 

“He told me he grew up in Bradford.”

 

A dim background had started to take shape behind him by now. A name, age, and place of origin putting more of him together.

 

Zayn Malik. 18-21 years old (she didn’t say illegal so that was his bracket). Only child. Possibly insane father. Dead mother. Northern.

 

Sounds normal-ish enough to Harry. Nothing to be too cautioned about. But with her next remark, some of that background vanished.

 

“However, I don’t believe him.”

 

“Believe what?”

 

“Bradford.”

 

Harry frowns.

 

“Why not?”

 

“I don’t know…” She trailed off in thought. “I just don’t think he’s really from there. He's very secretive.”

 

There was the caution.

 

She cut her eyes to the side after she said that, making sure he wasn’t caught up to them yet and overhearing any of their gossiping about him. They both looked back and didn’t see Zayn anywhere in sight. Not even at his booth.

 

Typical. Harry again wondered what the hell this guy was doing when no one else was around. If Perrie knew, she’d tell.

 

“He's hiding something. Ask around. Everyone knows it.”

 

They looked at each other again, Harry already gearing to defence mode like Z was his client on trial.

 

“What’s not to believe? It’s absolutely comprehensible that Zayn is from somewhere up North just based off his accent alone.”

 

“I’m not talking about the way he talks. You can barely even tell he has an accent.”

 

That was sort of true, especially coming from a native Californian like Perrie. If he wasn’t Northern himself, Harry probably wouldn’t have noticed at all. You could for sure tell he’s been in the states for a while.

 

“Then why?”

 

“He just doesn’t seem like someone that’s from there.”

 

That was all she left Harry with and he didn’t understand.

 

Surely he’s only been living in America right now because of his father’s work. But there had to be a reason for she thought that, legitimate or not. Harry wanted to find out.

 

Z never caught up to the two of them like he said he would by the time they’d made it to the front of the park.

 

When they joined the rest of their co-workers, Liam was the only one standing away from everyone else in the group, off to the side and smoking a pipe on his own while everyone else talked a few feet away from him.

 

At first, Harry thought maybe it was out of respect for the non-smokers around him but then again, Liam seemed like the kind of guy that hated people in general so he wouldn’t have been surprised if he just wanted his own space to stand in and purposefully smoked just to keep the pestering crowd away from him. That didn’t stop Harry from joining his party of one.

 

“Liam?” Harry smiles as he approached. “Is that a real pipe?”

 

Liam nods without looking up, lighting the end of his tube again with one hand, can of diet coke in the other.

 

“Yeah,” He sighs through a plume of smoke. “It’s a revolting affectation but, it relaxes me.”

 

“Anxiety?”

 

“Seasonal depression.”

 

Liam’s remarks were really hard to tell from jokes when most of everything he says is accompanied with a straight face. Harry tells him as much, shaking his head as Liam lets him take a hit off his pipe, which turned out to be some of the marijuana that Harry gave him earlier.

 

“You heard when I said that this is laced, right?”

 

“I did.”

 

Harry laughs.

 

“Don’t know why I thought you’d mind that.”

 

“I’m poor, Harry. Giving me free drugs is the equivalent to throwing functioning serotonin levels out to a crowd of L.A. gen X’ers.”

 

Harry was convinced Liam and his depressed, dry humour were not meant to be alive in the 80s. But he’s so glad he was anyway.

 

Without his glasses he always looked _so_ depressed. The more he exhaled the more his body seemed to relax as he closed his eyes and tilted his head back towards the sky slightly. From the way he’s hitting that pipe, you’d think it was giving him head.

 

He really needed it more than Harry did. Seeing that he was sobering up right now, he offered to lend Liam some of his stash.

 

“Illicit drugs are cool but, if you _really_ wanna do me a favour there’s something else you can do for me.”

 

They were in the middle of a steady rotation when Harry started laughing uncontrollably after his mind went to a totally dirty place which made Liam wrinkle his brows at him in contempt, holding back the urge to laugh himself.

 

“I was gonna ask you to cover my _shift_ next week… please don’t tell me I’m enabling a lightweight right now.”

 

 _“No, it’s not that,”_ Harry laughs, squeezing his eyes shut even though he nods yes. Liam just shakes his head.

 

He was thinking about Zayn again. He wanted to tell Liam about what happened earlier. How they almost kissed and that he’d learned his name and wanted to share it but he couldn’t get it out.

 

This thing happens when Harry starts getting high where he gets really inflated with funny gas. Even if he barely inhales.

 

“Yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and call bullshit. You’re a lightweight.”

 

“Well bullshit can’t come to the phone right now.” Harry retorts and they both kind of go crazy. Laughing.

 

Another disembodied voice finds their tiny circle.

 

“You guys are stoned, aren’t you?”

 

Zayn joins Liam and Harry’s small group and Harry is over elated with him drifting into the mix. That’s how he moves. He doesn’t walk. He drifts like the air is carrying him around.

 

“I was just thinking about you!” Harry blurts with a joyous laugh.

 

“Guys, this thing happened. I swear it’s like a real thing. I think about you and you’re nowhere to be found then, the second you slip my mind… you’re here! It’s incredible.”

 

“That _is_ incredible.” Zayn agrees and Harry can’t tell if his enthusiasm is mocking or genuine.

 

“Ignore him, he’s like 60 seconds away from tripping.” Liam rolls his eyes as he passes his pipe to Zayn but, Harry was being completely serious.

 

Zayn is now changed into his out of work shirt, the one with the picture of the ocean. Harry smiles as he bumps Liam’s shoulder when he stands next to him and Liam gives him a courtesy bump back without looking, indulging himself with Liam’s pipe before passing it to him.

 

“Wow… this is good weed.” He exhales towards the sky some more. Then Liam announces, “Harry’s giving me a stash.”

 

Zayn’s brows raise over his glasses.

 

“Oh, maybe you could bring some to the party at my house tomorrow night? My dad’s out of town.”

 

“Hmmm…” Liam thought about that for a moment. “Alcohol and drugs… loud music… disorderly college kids. That has a particularly dangerous ring to it.”

 

Harry had to agree with Liam on that one. It was one of those moments when you hear someone propose an idea that your parents spend your whole life telling you _not_ to do. He thought about what Perrie said and had a flashback to the last party he went to. Only, he saw an even worse version of it.

 

A tarnished, vomit-filled yard and himself lying dead in the middle of it. House on fire. Police surrounding the place. It wasn’t a pretty picture.

 

Z takes out his small, 20 oz bottle of alcohol then, waving it in front of Liam.

 

“I’ll have your _fav-vourite.”_ He sings to him.

 

“Cuban?”

 

Z hums mischievously as Liam is already letting him pour it into his coke.

 

Harry noticed Z sang his words a lot. He had a really nice voice… even just a hum. He wanted to tell him but he and Liam were in the middle of conversation so, he kept quiet for a while, observing how easily Liam could be swayed by Z and his little treats. His eyes seemed a bit brighter now too. Maybe it was the weed. Or maybe it was him getting drunk off Cuban rum and diet coke but, he smiled a whole lot more when Zayn was around and just generally seemed way less ready to die in his presence.

 

Anyone who has the ability to make Liam’s enthusiasm for life somewhat return from war had to be magic. And gay. Harry was mostly focused on the fact that his friendship with Liam might mean it was safe to think of him as one of them.

 

Zayn somehow convinces Liam to come to his party as he’s moved on to taking swigs straight from Zayn’s bottle after a joke Zayn tells has him dying of laughter into his shoulder. He was definitely getting drunk. He handed it to Harry to try, who takes a hesitant drink with a sour wince before passing it back to Z.

 

“Good?” Zayn smirks at Harry, who wipes his mouth in disgust of the rotten apple after taste.

 

 _“Delicious.”_ He sputters out a cough, slapping the back of his hand over his mouth and they laugh.

 

“So are you in?”

 

He directs this to just Harry who by all means had no recent plans to go to another party. But saying no to hanging out with someone he wanted nothing more than to get to know better just felt wrong.

 

“I’m… invited?”

 

“Um… yes. That’s why I’m telling you.”

 

“I am _so_ in.” Niall plods over to their small circle then after over-hearing their plans but Z tells him children aren’t invited.

 

Immediately, the mood shifts.

 

“Oh come on, Z. Like you’re so much older than us.”

 

“Taunting me is really not helping your case, buddy.” He says flatly.

 

Something about the way he talked to Niall did make him seem older. Or at least, responsible enough not to invite a high schooler to his debauched soiree. Harry still didn’t think it was a good idea for him to go himself.

 

This was only his second week mostly sober and he didn’t want to totally break his streak just yet. Plus he didn’t need his uncle on his back more than he already was. He’d just climbed out of hot water. Did he want to flirt with more?

 

He kept zoning in and out of the conversation and every time he zones back in, a new person was in on the discussion, begging Z to invite them to his house. You’d never think they were at all concerned about the radiation thing.

 

Every time Harry looks up he locks eyes with Zayn and every time, he can’t tell if it’s just awkward eye contact or if one of them just got caught checking each other out.

 

Someone observes Zayn’s out of work shirt, breaking another semi-awkward staring match.

 

“The Ocean,” One of their coworkers nods approvingly with a cool smile. “If only you could get him to come to your party.”

 

Harry looks down at his shirt again as his brow come together, processing if what he just said means what Harry _thinks_ it means.

 

“That’s… the Ocean on your shirt?” He asks slowly, looking back up at his face.

 

“As in _the_ Ocean?”

 

He looks down at it too, like he’d totally forgot what he was wearing then shrugged.

 

“I didn’t buy it.”

 

Harry becomes stuck on the fact that _the Ocean’s face is on his t-shirt._

 

He’s too far away to see anything other than his silhouette against the water but this was the first confirmation that he was in love with an actual human being here. His hair was long like how he expected and Harry thinks he’s naked. He seemed to be at the edge of the beach, waiting for something. Like he’s gearing to walk into it.

 

Harry stares at it without blinking and he swore he could almost smell it, salty and wet just like the sea. Or maybe that was just Z. He could almost see the waves _moving._ But then again, he was starting to feel the LSD making everything come alive around him. Even that would’ve been easier to process than the strange feeling that Harry was looking at someone that he already knew.

 

_Am I crazy?_

 

“Did you hear that Harry?”

 

It was Perrie’s voice that broke him out of the trance that had just taken him away from the group for a minute. Everyone was gathered around by now and the topic kept changing so much it became like he was just listening to a string of non sequiturs.

 

Both Harry _and_ Z looked over at her in response, as if they’d both been too preoccupied to be zoned into the discussion they’d started.

 

“What?” He mutters. Perrie was leaning over Niall’s shoulder.

 

“Nialler said Kevin Parker jams with the Ocean sometimes, how cool is _that?”_

 

_“What?!”_

 

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Of all the fucking people he’d met in L.A., he’s never come close to meeting someone who _knew_ the Ocean.

 

Anyone who’s ever “met” him only heard about it from a friend who knew a friend.

 

“Where is Kevin anyways?”

 

“He just left like 5 minutes ago.”

 

 _Huh._ Harry thought. Didn’t even say goodbye?

 

Now he has to ask Kevin about _everything_ but that was about the only guy he actually never seen at all here but the one fleeting time. He only gets called in when a ride is broken. Apparently, his side gig it being a badass guitarist.

 

Niall goes on to explain the legend of the Ocean and Kevin Parker to Harry, telling them about how he doesn’t really have a band but just goes around all over L.A. collaborating with whoever he happens to meet. Different voices, different musicians, different stories… all collected and recreated into a beautiful kaleidoscope of sound. One of the few people who have lived to tell about it was Kevin.

 

“I heard he just smokes pot with you and turns whatever comes out of your mouth into a song.” Someone adds to the gossip.

 

That made Harry laugh a little. He adds _“smoke a blunt with the Ocean and tell his life story”_ to his bucket list. It would without a doubt be the most boring song anyone’s ever heard.

 

Perrie leans over to Harry’s side with a smile on her face.

 

 _“See? I told you we’d find him this summer didn’t I?”_ She nudges him a little and Harry can’t even fathom it.

 

“He’s closer than you think.”

 

_Closer than you think._

 

The words repeated over in his head in an echo of deja vu.

 

“Find who?” Niall asks and Perrie tells everyone what Harry is on the hunt for this summer, which Harry finds _beyond_ embarrassing.

 

“He would literally _die_ if he ever saw him live, in the flesh. He’d just have a stroke and fucking die _.”_

 

Harry covers his eyes with an internal groan, wishing she just knew how to shut up sometimes. She’s like an over excited mother embarrassing her child.

 

Z smiles a little as he looks down at his shirt, snorting in silence.

 

“I heard Parker fucks him, too.” Niall adds and one of the other brunette RIDES girls, Eleanor, hits him in his shoulder while Harry frowns.

 

“Gross.” She scoffs. “Kevin is married you perv.”

 

“So? That doesn't stop rocktars from getting pussy while they're on the road.”

 

“Except he’s not a queer and neither is the Ocean.” She says, casually insulting a third of the group. Harry is suddenly reminded of how nauseating being around too many straight people can get.

 

Liam and Harry do not comment. Well… Liam does.

 

“You’d be surprised.” Liam snorts with his pipe.

 

“We come in all shapes, sizes _and_ bodies of water.”

 

He’d been reading a book in his hand as he smoked his pipe in silence since this had become a group meeting so he was pretty univested in the whole discussion just as much as Harry and Z were since everyone has decided to butt into their conversation. Harry understood now why Liam usually stands alone and ignores basically everyone around him.

 

“Hey, no offence.” Niall says to Liam, giving him the scouts honour gesture.

 

“I’m 100% tolerant of gay people.”

 

Liam and Harry give each other a look before Liam’s eyes roll up as he sticks out his tongue and motions gagging himself with his finger.

 

 _‘Kinky.’_ Harry mouths back at him, wiggling his eyebrows up and down with a dimpled smile. Z looks between the two of them with raised brows, smiling slowly.

 

Was that an awareness of solidarity with their inside joke? Harry didn’t know.

 

Liam puts his bookmark in place and leaves before his buzz renders him unable to drive himself home. He gave Harry his number just in case he wants to do anything this weekend and doesn’t give anyone else so much as a goodbye apart from a slight nod to Harry and a hard but affectionate shove at Zayn. Harry thought leaving sounded like a great idea.

 

His aunt pulls up with perfect timing and he was relieved.

 

He backs away, waving goodbye and telling everyone he’d see them next week as he’s dragging Perrie and Niall away with him.

 

He doesn’t get very far.

 

“Hey, I could give you a ride if you want.”

 

Harry looks back at Zayn with a vibrating buzz starting in his chest.

 

“Really?”

 

“Yeah, it’s not a problem.”

 

Zayn was just overall becoming music to his ears.

 

“Unless you _want_ to ride home babysitting?”

 

He takes one look at Perrie and Niall and imagines the 20 minute car ride of them making out in the backseat, shivering a little.

 

 _“Yeah…_ no.”

 

“Yeah. Fuck them, right?” Zayn agrees.

 

Harry nods as they laugh, walking off together.

 

“Actually, I don’t think that’s such a great idea--” Perrie starts but Harry cuts her off.

 

“Well I think that’d be a _great_ idea _.”_

 

He gets that she doesn’t like Zayn but Harry did and he’s sick of letting other people make these decisions for him. It’s time he maybe forges his own path. He doesn’t even look back as he walks away. Zayn jogs a little catches up with him.

 

“Don’t leave without me.” He reminds Harry jokingly, who remembers he doesn’t even know what his car looks like as he slows down.

 

“Oh… yeah. Sorry. When I’m detached from Perrie it’s like I have to run away to make sure we _stay_ detached _.”_

 

“I feel you. I get the similar urge of running and hiding every time I clock in.”

 

That was pretty obvious. But Harry got the feeling he didn’t do that because of his boss.

 

As he followed Z, the neon red lights illuminating Adventureland glitched a few times before suddenly shutting off, plunging them into darkness save for the few flickering lights in the lot. Up ahead, the sky was a black ocean of nothing but a silver disc with a white pathway stretching across the Pacific, connecting Adventureland to the moon by the ocean.

 

They’re shoulders bump a few times as they walk through the lot. Too close but still a perfect space between them. An unusually sudden wave of nerves hits Harry just thinking of what was about to unfold.

 

They were walking to Z’s car. Another confined space where kissing usually took place late at night. And he could confirm that Z would indeed kiss him if given the chance.

 

He didn’t know what to do with his hands or what to say next. He glanced over at Z and his relaxed drift, getting the feeling they’ve been watching each other every time the other looks away. He picks up more details each time. The slight brushing of facial hair trying to grow faintly around his mouth. Right above where this perched look about his lips sat like he was ready to invite a smile at any moment.

 

They ended up walking in total silence and surprisingly, it was the total opposite of awkward. He sometimes likes it when things are so silent.

 

When someone is quiet around him, he starts trying to guess their thoughts. The quieter is it, the more he’ll have to say and Harry couldn’t wait to get into his car. He felt like he had a whole story already planned out to tell Z, starting with his name.

 

Apparently Zayn drives a matte black, drop top 1967 Jaguar Roadster that is _covered_ in suede skin _._ This had to be a joke.

 

Was he James Bond?

 

“ _This_ is your car?”

 

“This is _a_ car.”

 

With an answer like that, they could’ve easily been stealing it. From the smirk on his face at Harry’s reaction, he didn’t seem to mind giving Harry that impression. Harry told himself he shouldn’t be so surprised. If his father was a scientist then he was bound to drive a nice car.

 

The interior smelled brand spanking new like no one had touched this car until today. When he turned it on, soothing music flowed from the speakers at full-volume, jolting them both before Zayn quickly shuts it off with a wince.

 

Harry knows that sound anywhere.

 

“Sorry, I usually listen to music on the way to work--”

 

“Oh God, I _love_ the Ocean. I’ve heard like every record he’s ever made!” Harry starts to rave, absolutely thrilled that they have the same taste in music. He takes the liberty of turning the volume back up a little as he starts the song over.

 

“Although, I’ve never heard this song before… which album is this?”

 

“I don’t really listen to albums. My friend just makes me these tapes.”

 

_‘Friend’_

 

With just one single word, Harry was suddenly convinced that he wasn’t single and his heart began to have an aneurysm.

 

“This is some pretty older stuff.” Z continued, unaware of Harry’s burning chest.

 

“There’s all kinds of different people on these cassettes. Like a little mix.”

 

He shows Harry a tape labelled, _‘2017’,_ a time period that’s exactly 30 years into the future from now. Appropriate. This music was so ahead of its time with a sound that was so retro at the same time, it was amazing. Like listening to an active time traveller.

 

There’s probably all kinds of old classics out there. Beautiful stuff that no one’s ever heard before. Harry didn’t even care anymore that he was missing out on good music from his idol that he would’ve never known of had he not stepped into this car. He wanted to throw himself out of the door. But first, he needed to know if he was jumping to too many conclusions. He needed more information.

 

“Your friend makes these?” He says, trying too hard to sound casual.

 

“Yeah, he’s really into music. Mixes great stuff.”

 

_‘Great. “He”. Even better.’_

 

Harry knew it was definitely possible for friends to platonic-ally give each other mix tapes… but that was wishful thinking. Because he also knew how to tell when someone was downplaying something about their relationship with someone. He could tell from the way he said it that they were a little bit more than friends. Maybe something new he didn’t want to label yet? And that was actually okay if this was really the case.

 

It didn’t change the fact that Harry still really liked him. Even if it would never go any further than a platonic level, he enjoyed his company. There was nothing wrong with at least wanting be friends with him.

 

They’d drove past the last exit out of the county and had gotten onto the highway by now so they ride next to the Pacific with a perfect view of the entire coastline, including where the last drops of sunlight are still sinking into the horizon. Since he’d babysat for Perrie a few years ago, Harry figured he knew where he was going on his own without any direction needed.

 

Zayn drove a little bit under the speed limit since there weren’t as many cars out this late at night and the way the engine purred like a kitten vibrated through Harry’s bones pleasantly. He rolled down his window and let the cool air wrath him in it’s fresh scent. Cruising along the PCH, Harry couldn’t feel more at ease with the sounds of the ocean waves outside and the musical synth waves humming lowly in the background. It was a perfect kind of sound. Blended melodies coming together. Music blooming straight from Earth’s waters. Beautiful company. Just perfect.

 

Every anxious bone in his body suddenly felt like they were melting into bliss as Zayn lets the top down. He finally closes his eyes and lets the wind carry him away.

 

 _“This is so nice.”_ He murmurs.

 

He could feel eyes on him but he was starting to enjoy the spotlight.

 

“You really like music, huh?”

 

That question was almost blasphemous. To assume it was possible for anyone to exist and not like this music.

 

“He’s so ahead of our time. No one appreciates his genius like the people here do.”

 

“You think so?”

 

“I _know_ so.”

 

Harry opens his eyes again as he looks over at Z, leaning back as he drives. Still wearing that _ready-to-smile_ look. Cheeks still painted with a light flush.

 

 _God…_ he’s so fucking cute.

 

Harry looks away then and just distracts himself with listening to the Ocean.

 

His voice sounds so different here. Layers of years stripped away from it and naivety imbued into the lyrics. It’s just a simple guitar with a line of words as his exposed voice over the strings that carry the weight of the whole song. So much vulnerability and an unexpected show of how vast his range is emerges, from capable falsettos to lower baritone registers. It’s like listening to a doe learn to walk but own it’s strut at the same time.

 

The story itself is so personal. This isn’t just a _little_ different than the way he sings now. That was a serious understatement. It’s like a whole other person. Who he actually is - or maybe used to be - which is nothing like the mystery Harry has grown so used to.

 

He’s never heard him talk about himself as he sings about the summer of ‘82, his first time coming to California with his family just 5 years ago and feeling like just another cloud in a misty atmosphere.

 

The crazy thing is, Harry thought the guy was already from here.

 

Usually each song is from a different person’s perspective with a different story every time as if he sings about people he meets or sees around him. People pursuing their dreams or just simply trying to make something of themselves out here in the land of opportunity. Love stories. Sad stories. Success stories… everyone colour of the rainbow. From the person that’s lived here their whole life to the one that’s just passing through. Harry could usually relate a number of those people. Now, he’s discovered that the Ocean was one of them too. And he made it.

 

The fact that he's clearly younger here makes this the first time Harry’s actually wondered how old this guy might be. He used to picture someone years older but now he sees someone not that different from himself. Young, anxious and foreign. Just starting his own life. Making L.A. one stepping stone in the journey and letting the wind carry him to the next one.

 

“Yeah, I like this song too.” Z ends up saying, and he’s just _asking_ for Harry to fall in love with him now.

 

Even without all his usual production and effects, it might just be the most incredible song he’s ever heard.

 

“The sounds alone tells a better story than words ever can.” Harry starts and once you get him going about the Ocean, it’s hard to stop him. Zayn doesn’t look like he has a desire to, happy to listen.

 

“It’s like he’s found a way to turn the sound of everyone that’s come here with a story into music. I don’t think I could even fully understand it if I didn’t live here. Everytime I listen, it’s like I’m being fed all the secrets of whatever sonic, dreamy universe he’s from. He answers so many questions I didn’t even know I had.”

 

“Southern California being that sonic universe.” Zayn clarifies and Harry nods.

 

“Right. I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to be able to listen to someone else’s dream and fully understand it, let alone translate that into a song that properly conveys it’s every meaning exactly how they mean to. Let alone _multiple_ dreams, layered on top of each other, on a candy flip. It’s fucking amazing. I want that. What he always sings about, I want it. I just…  don’t know how to, exactly.”

 

He knew it wasn’t making much sense. He could never articulate the feeling of what exactly it is that he wants just the same way he could never fully articulate a dream to someone but, Zayn seemed to be following exactly everything of what he said.

 

“You want to be a song.”

 

It wasn’t until Zayn put it in words did he realise that was it. That was what he wanted. Meet the Ocean and become one of his songs. Be someone with a life worth having a story to tell about.

 

It wasn’t exactly “the” answer. But it was an answer just as good.

 

“Yeah,” Harry nods slowly. “I wish I were someone in his song.”

 

“Any song?”

 

“This one. Right now.”

 

They listen and enjoy the music together for a moment, both of them nodding along as the voice in Zayn’s speaker sings to them about trying to cover the distance of the shallow ocean that’s growing inside of him, alone and slightly lost. How he had no idea how much depth he’d find in someone else’s. And fall even deeper into many more.

 

It sounds like it could be a love song for a string of many lovers, not just one.

 

He was someone lost that found himself in others. The origin story of him finding the ocean of details that exists inside of everyone. All the stories they hold and falling in love with every one of them.

 

The song ends with a guitar solo that stretches out for one full minute of pure instrumental. It’s not the greatest guitar solo ever - he could definitely stand to keep practising - but it claims just enough space in the song to leave enough room for the listener to enjoy the story it accompanied.

 

After it finally ends a more recent song of his comes on, one of Harry’s favourites. But it may as well be a total stranger now. In a way, it was.

 

No hate to his recent work but Harry thinks the way he used to sing was way better. It seemed more grounded to someone who really exists. He gets the sense that he’s just met the real person behind the Ocean now, which no longer seems like a person but a movement.

 

 _“Wow._ ” Harry was finally released from his trance as he looked over at Z again, who’d gone back to watching the road.

 

“I can’t believe this isn’t on a legitimate record.”

 

“It’s pretty old. Most people don’t like their first works.” Z shrugs and Harry can’t fathom how someone could possibly dislike something that good.

 

“Still, it’s timeless. Anyone could relate. I can relate and I’ve only been here for the last _year_.”

 

Z takes the joint from behind his ear and lets it sit in his mouth, unlit.

 

“So what brought you here, anyway?” He asks then, letting it dangle before he lights it.

 

“To Adventureland, I mean.” He offers it to Harry after a few puffs make him reappear in and out of blue smoke.

 

Harry just goes ahead and takes it, not even holding off on inhaling it all the way like he did before with Liam because what the fuck right? 2 weeks sober was pretty impressive. The weekend was the time to let loose a little.

 

“You mean what brings me to the last level of hell?”

 

This was probably a conversation Virgil had with Dante.

 

“Yeah, that one.” Zayn nods, his expression more focused and less smiley now, like he’s trying to figure something out. Harry feels it weighing heavy on his lungs already, tickling the back of his throat until he starts coughing. This stuff is way stronger than his.

 

“Liam said you went to Reaseheath. That’s on Nantwich, right?”

 

“Um… Cheshire, yeah.” Harry cleared his throat to stifle his grin, trying not to focus too hard on the fact that Z _asked_ Liam about him. Probably the same way he asked Liam about Z .

 

He wonders what exactly he asked and what all Liam told him. Where he was when all this investigating about him was going on. Probably daydreaming about Zayn at a booth somewhere nearby since that’s how he occupies most of his time in and outside of Adventureland these days.

 

There was something kind of cheesy and beautiful about the notion of them sending thoughts about each other off into the universe from across the park. Harry feels his face swarming with heat as he bites in a smile.

 

“Cheshire.” Zayn repeats with a confirming nod, then points his thumbs at himself at the wheel.

 

 _“Bradford.”_ He smiles.

 

“We’re practically related.”

 

Harry cringed as soon as the words left his mouth but, Zayn laughs.

 

“I thought you looked familiar. My mum had green eyes.”

 

_Had._

 

It should make him sad but a bubbly feeling creeps up his throat after he takes another long hit that makes Harry laugh with Zayn, not knowing how else to respond since he already knew half of this stuff about him. About Bradford. About his mother. Except now, he can picture her with green eyes, now knowing where Zayn gets the hint of hazel flakes in his own.

 

He wants to know what brought Zayn to Adventureland.

 

There’s a melodic influence on Zayn’s accent making every word with a U or A come out pronounced like an O. He doesn’t care why Perrie doesn’t believe it anymore. He’s definitely from Bradford.

 

“I was asking because you just don’t strike me as someone who’d willingly put himself in the shackles of a summer job like this.” Zayn says, bringing Harry back to the original question.

 

He didn’t know how to tell Zayn that his interests outside of listening to music or making out with a different guy every week for the last year are either smoking weed and drinking alcohol, staring at the Pacific ocean at night or sleeping well into the afternoon.

 

“What do I strike you as?” He asks instead.

 

“Not very bound to the ground. I picture you imagining yourself elsewhere.”

 

“Elsewhere like where?”

 

“Not exactly here. I dunno, when you listen to music you’ve just got that far away look in your eye. Like you’re watching a dream. It’s fascinating.”

 

“Really?”

 

Zayn nods.

 

“Dreaming with your eyes opened.”

 

Harry couldn’t stop repeating his words in his head over again. He didn’t want him to stop talking. Just tell him more about what else he saw in Harry.

 

He’d never been talked about by someone else like this, let alone fascinated someone. The way he looked through Zayn’s starry eyes sounded like the same dreamy someone everyone else saw but, in a different way. Someone in a song. Someone closer to himself.

 

“This is ironic.” Harry snorts.

 

“Why?”

 

_Because I dream about you every single night._

 

Harry doesn’t dare tell himthat. Not yet, anyway.

 

“I dream about being in the ocean a lot. I can’t even swim.”

 

“Which ocean?”

 

“This one.”

 

The line of the horizon was starting to warp a little, edges less defined while broader things like the Pacific became more crisp. Like he could see every individual wave. They smoked the blunt down until it was a roach, inhaling the vapour around them. They’re technically hotboxing right now since he let the top back up. He’s surprised they haven’t suffocated or crashed. All his bones seem to have disappeared. And his filter.

 

“I think we all dream about being somewhere else.” Harry started talking again.

 

“Or at least, being free from whatever our situation is. I used to always imagine being in L.A., thinking as soon as I got here everything would just be figured out. Imagining my life being different somehow.”

 

“Imagine feeling free.”

 

That was _exactly_ what Harry did.

 

Was he so transparent that Z could actually see into his head or could he actually relate? He seemed to speak from experience.

 

Harry just nods silently as chills spread up his arms.

 

He wanted to be free, he supposed. He just doesn’t know from what. It was just a feeling he tattooed onto himself. Those exact words even.

 

Those were the Ocean’s words.

 

Another stoned thought popped into his head then. It came so fast that he knew he was about to blurt something insanely stupid but even knowing it was coming, there was still no stopping it.

 

“I think I sort of just wanted to be in love.” Harry says, spilling is truth out of nowhere.

 

He’d never told anyone that before. Not even the people he tried to be in love with. And he had no idea what compelled him to decide to now. He shrugs after, like he’s convinced himself it’s actually not that big of a deal anymore. He goes ahead and answers Zayn’s original question that he was avoiding so well.

 

“I’m always trying but, I’m also always fucking it up. I don’t understand why I fuck up trying to be in love but, my last fuck up landed me in Adventureland.”

 

He doesn’t go into too much specifics like he did with Liam about boyfriends and empty heartbreak but he gives Zayn a basic rundown of how he’s been using terrible coping mechanisms to make up for issues that he can’t seem to find answers for. How relationships, booze, and even sobriety has gotten him nowhere.

 

“I guess I’m still at the ‘lost’ stage of life. The scenery changed but, I'm still the same person I’ve always been.”

 

He tells Zayn about how he’s been trying to fulfil himself with all this idol shit for ages, starting with giving his parents what they wanted for him to do. Going to college when he was 16, which turned out to be a huge waste of two years of his life followed by another huge waste of 4 more when he re-enrolled in university. _So_ much schooling… he just needed a break, which lead him _here_.

 

“Back home, my stomach was always knotted up just thinking about how my life was going to go after graduation… it was a different kind of hell. I left England the first chance I got to change some things. Buy myself some time to figure stuff out. Expose myself to different crowds and whatnot. Listening to this kind of music has really helped a lot because I know I’m not really alone in feeling like this. It’s almost therapeutic. Whether I’m happy, sad. High. Watching the sunset. Cruising along the coast like we are now… whatever. Being in here has helped a lot but, I think I’m most grateful I found this here more than anything else I’ve encountered. ” He points to Zayn’s box of cassettes.

 

“Just listening to his stories has really gotten me through this whole process. Cause I know someone out there went through the same thing and… they’re okay now. Then music plays.”

 

It wasn’t the story he was planning on telling him back in the parking lot - Harry just wanted to ask if he wouldn’t mind being called Zayn from now on. But something in him opened up and he ended up telling him everything he had inside him.

 

Well, _almost_ everything.

 

Zayn had a completely unreadable look as he took it all in. When Harry finished, he was quiet for a really long time and this round it actually started to make him nervous. He didn’t really know what he was expecting but, it wasn’t a non responsive blip in the car.

 

The silence made him shift a little uncomfortably, thinking maybe he said way too much up his unsolicited life’s story.

 

Zayn suddenly pulled the car off the freeway on the first exit they came up to but it wasn’t a way to Harry’s place that he knew.  

 

“What’re you--”

 

“I don’t usually do this but, I want to show you something.” Zayn says, now looking like he was trying really hard not to smile or contain some kind of nervous excitement.

 

“I didn’t want to freak you out before….” He starts with a bit of a caution.

 

“But I don’t think I can let you go home _without_ doing this now.”

 

Harry nodded carefully, swallowing a lump in his throat.

 

“Okay.”

 

Zayn lets the radio play now.

 

_[Make Out in My Car](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZoMd5lsKLk) _

 

As they drive down a lonely country road, the startling thought occurred to him that he had no idea where they were, where they were going or really, who he was with. For some reason not knowing what was next excited him. Kind of like when you’re dreaming or when you first walk into a lit party. The feeling that anything could happen.

 

 _It’s the weekend._ Harry thought. He was officially spending a Friday night out with Zayn. That’s what this feeling was.

 

Just like with his stay in L.A., Harry suddenly didn’t want this weekend to end. Not this summer or this conversation or this entire night.

 

He already got one wish tonight. Maybe a miracle would happen and he’d get another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I faked you out at the kissing booth but I won't fake you out in the car this time. Backseats are just Harry's thing here so I had to figure a way to get them there


End file.
